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Latest comment: 2 years ago by Miraki in topic Open Letter from Arbcoms to the Board of Trustees

IP ban on pt.Wiki

Latest comment: 3 years ago30 comments9 people in discussion

The following vote taking place on Portuguese Wikipedia could lead to an unprecedented decision in the entire project: ban IPs from making edits, releasing only registered users. Knowing that Wikipedia is "a free encyclopedia" and that the Portuguese strand is increasingly isolated, it loses active editors and becomes an increasingly toxic community, how does the Board of Trustees receive this information?

Take into account that the community itself does not want the public to know this, limiting the notice of voting to registered users only. .J. tlk 07:35, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Ain't that against the five pillars? Why don't they try flagged versions first? It works fine in the deWP. not really a small one. Banning IP-Users completely from editing must be a strict no-go, imho anyone voting for such anti-wikimedian stuff should be restricted from editing in the Wikiverse. Grüße vom Sänger ♫(Reden)
Sänger The five pillars are being ignored in part of the discussions. See: "Não sei como impedir que IPs editem é contra qualquer pilar. Nenhum direito seria atingido. É fácil se registrar. Muito fácil." / "[...] os cinco pilares não são nenhum 'princípio fundador'. São uma página escrita cinco anos depois do início do projeto." (ps: i did not translate the excerpts so that you understand the point where the five pillars are ignored. it is interesting to note that in these two comments they suggest a subversion to a possible refusal to implement the IP ban.) .J. tlk 08:51, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
I don't know Portuguese, in neither dialect, so I can't read the discussions there, let alone participate, but has anyone ever mentioned Flagged Revisions at all? That's imho a good possibility to keep IP-vandals at bay, while keeping the threshold low for participation. Grüße vom Sänger ♫(Reden) 13:21, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
Or the Founding principles? This is quite clearly a decision beyond the individual community's will as it involved what Wikipedia is, so it would be rejected outright based on this discussion alone. However, if there is a very strong local consensus that such a measure should be investigated, the Portuguese Wikipedia community can launch a global RfC or other discussion to ask whether there is consensus for Wikipedia to go in this direction. (Before that it's probably useful to have some fact-collection in conversation with relevant Wikimedia Foundation folks.) I'll note that the current discussion doesn't show a strong consensus, only a relatively small majority. Nemo 17:08, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
Some editors claim that the situation of the project "requires" blocking IP editions to prevent vandalism, ignoring the fact that the participation of active users has been low lately. They are very firm in this regard, so much so that in two days the vote ends and, with the vast majority of votes in favor, the implementation of the blockade begins. Regarding the "founding principles", the discussion of the last topic wants to suggest that the page is a "joke or personal essay" ("[...] will you continue to worship this golden caf, or let the worshipers of that joke interfere in our decisions?"). .J. tlk 18:45, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
And for the same link Nemo linked to (in Limits to configuration changes, look for "Installation of extensions/skins that are not well maintained" table), FlaggedRevs are no longer allowed to be installed on any wiki (while they are supported on the existing wikis with it). (PS: Well, unconfirmed, but I've heard that they were already told that they will be rejected on phab, but they are going to do it anyway whatever others said. I guess they are going to try abusefilter?) — regards, Revi 18:59, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
That was the suggestion. They are even planning ideas for implementing filters to force unregistered users to create a registry. All this due to the rejection of the IP ban in the phabricator. .J. tlk 19:27, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
Is there any reason why Flagged Revision is no option any more? Why was this simple solution put off the table? Grüße vom Sänger ♫(Reden) 13:10, 4 October 2020 (UTC)
@Sänger: It have been tested before, and was removed due to its inefficiency on wiki-pt. See phab:T211433. ━ ALBERTOLEONCIO Who, me? 14:30, 4 October 2020 (UTC)
What strange kind of vandalism ist this, that can't be dealt with with normal and wikimedian measures, but has to resort to such antiwikimedian measures like IP-Verboten!? It can't be the usual penis vandals, they can be dealt with perfectly with FlaggedRev and Huggle or such, SPA and SEO-vandals can#t be the problem a well, as other WP can handle them as well without much problems with the usual, more pinpoint, measures. Why ditch the free editing, a very highly valued characteristic of the Wikiverse? Grüße vom Sänger ♫(Reden) 15:29, 4 October 2020 (UTC)
@Sänger:I'm very used to following IP vandalisms at the filters. A significant part of them is motivated precisely by the fact that they can edit unregistered. They write precisely that in the articles: "Wikipedia is so unreliable that I just edited it, and they allowed me. Also, there are games or challenges organized by teenagers at social networks where dozens of them ravage an article or a set of articles with tenths of vandalisms in a very short time, made in such a way that they are virtually impossible to block using the filters. And much more. Everybody is pretty much fed up with that. Other Wikimedians who have different realities do as they please, but I do not consider them to have even the least right to interfere in our community in this specific subject.- Darwin Ahoy! 16:28, 4 October 2020 (UTC)
And with FlaggedRevs nobody would ever see this, besides those, who know about it and can asap revert. Grüße vom Sänger ♫(Reden) 16:31, 4 October 2020 (UTC) PS: What's that <blockquote> is supposed to mean?
@Sänger: As for flagrevs, it failed miserably as it totally mixed up good revs and bad revs in the history of the article, making it a very hard task to try to approve the good ones without simply reverting everything. Also, there were not enough people monitoring them, and they would stay unapproved for weeks or months. <blockquote> is just crap added by the crappy visual editor.--- Darwin Ahoy! 16:33, 4 October 2020 (UTC)
FlaggedRevs works fine on deWP, it's a good tool against school-vandalism, SPA, and that kind of vandals. What exactly went wrong on ptWP, that you can't cope in a normal way with vandals? Grüße vom Sänger ♫(Reden) 12:58, 5 October 2020 (UTC)


As far as I know, this is unprecedented? My Portuguese is not good enough to follow all the conversations on the Esplanada, but I wonder if more anti-vandalism tools (I'm thinking ORES for instance, I don't know if it's been tried) would help in the face of such a drastic measure. Raystorm (talk) 16:03, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

To get to this point it is because the pt.Wiki has become so isolated that they want to take radical measures, like this one that is unprecedented in the Wikipedia. I brought it here because the public from outside does not imagine what is going to happen - and this will only become public when there is a favorable consensus for a portion of the community (when registration is required to edit and create new articles). .J. tlk 18:52, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
I don't think it is a issue for Board to discuss. @Martin Urbanec:.--GZWDer (talk) 19:38, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
Well, I thought this is where Wikimedia should know about this initiative before it is implemented. .J. tlk 09:27, 3 October 2020 (UTC)
I think a better place would have been Wikimedia Forum, not just the board talk page. Grüße vom Sänger ♫(Reden) 09:30, 3 October 2020 (UTC)
Ok. I'm done here. .J. tlk 21:16, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

You should notice that JardelW has a indefinite ban at wiki.pt at the Wikipedia domain.--- Darwin Ahoy! 16:13, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

You should notice, that banning IPs is antiwikimedian behaviour, imho all users, that voted for this should be banned. Grüße vom Sänger ♫(Reden) 16:29, 4 October 2020 (UTC)
@Sänger: Sure, good luck with that.--- Darwin Ahoy! 16:34, 4 October 2020 (UTC)
I was the target of an authoritarian block for making comments off Wiki. Pure revanchism. Bringing this irrelevant fact to the discussion is further proof that they want to go over the established pillars and that they would do it in a hidden way. The emissary is blamed for disclosing information of interest. It is a symptom of the obscure period that society lives (and a constant reality of pt.Wiki). To tell you the truth, I am afraid of any retaliation for bringing this issue here. .J. tlk 22:23, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

BTW, it's not "unprecedent". In Commons IPs have been banned from adding content since... ever?, and nobody seems to be especially worried with that. To each own, it's reality.--- Darwin Ahoy! 16:37, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

Did BoT not give an opinion on the question? This theme should be better discussed, since the local administration has already disseminated the "novelty" to the press. Obviously, they have omitted all the problematic issues they have overcome in order for this to be "approved". .J. tlk 07:50, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

You know there is no local administration, right, Jardel?--- Darwin Ahoy! 12:42, 29 October 2020 (UTC)
Better to use these words than to use the appropriate adjectives... .J. tlk 07:03, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
It's good to see some a comment from Raystorm. I would have hoped to hear from the other board members. (Note that the issue was reported in English Wikipedia's Signpost a month later, News and Notes 1 for November "Portuguese Wikipedia bans IP editing" by Erico, where he wrote "The community then contacted the WMF Board of Trustees to argue in favor of the new rule. The WMF has not responded so far, but neither have they interfered". Another Portuguese user in the comments section said that registrations were up and vandalism was down already by 3 November.) — Pelagic (talk) 10:58, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
In fact, the "users" are spending time fighting among themselves. The author of this text left the post of Bureaucrat because he was disallowed by another Bureaucrat (because of a fight between sysops). It is just an appetizer of the situation on Portuguese Wikipedia. If no one from the WMF interferes there, the project will become a fighting ring lol .J. tlk 19:57, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Approval of Bylaws amendments and upcoming call for feedback about the selection of new trustees

Latest comment: 3 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Hi everyone. Please see Approval_of_Bylaws_amendments_and_upcoming_call_for_feedback_about_the_selection_of_new_trustees. Kind regards, Raystorm (talk) 17:14, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Executive transition planning

Latest comment: 3 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Hello all, please see Wikimedia Foundation Board noticeboard/4 February 2021 - Executive transition planning. Thank you, Gregory Varnum (Wikimedia Foundation) [he/him] (talk) 19:12, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

February Board meeting update

Latest comment: 3 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Hi all, in the last week of February, the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees had our regular meeting for Q3 (January – March) of the Foundation’s fiscal year. We will have more detail about what transpired at the meeting once the minutes have been prepared and we have approved them, but we wanted to quickly release this brief update on some key topics and decisions:

  • We have created a new Board committee, the Community Affairs Committee, to dedicate resources to providing greater and more sustained strategic support for the Foundation’s community-facing work. For more detail, you can review the Community Affairs Committee Charter. Among other things, we hope that the Community Affairs Committee will help focus the Board's involvement in the movement strategy implementation discussions as well as other aspects of community-facing work.
  • As part of the CEO/Executive Director transition process, we have created a Board Transition Committee and an executive Transition Team. The Transition Committee will oversee the transition process and focus on the search for the next CEO. The Transition Team will support the Transition Committee and steward the management of the Foundation during the CEO/ED transition period.

On behalf of the Board,
Raystorm (talk) 15:10, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

I'm glad to see the addition:

The Foundation shall also provide the Board of Trustees with notice for information only, on a quarterly basis, for any donations (or cumulative donations from an individual donor or entities controlled by an individual donor-controlled) that exceed $100,000 USD or equivalent value.

I very much hope the anti-harassment article never needs to be invoked... How could an employee ever feel forced to inappropriate interactions with a donor? The sentence «The Wikimedia Foundation employees, contractors, and interns have the right to refuse to interact with any donor, potential donor, or supporter» goes much beyond the scope of a "gift policy", though.

While the general direction here seems good, it's probably necessary to reverse some other damage performed around 2016, going back to earlier versions. The amounts can be changed, of course, but the previous structure was superior in that:

  • it was clear who was responsible for what, while now we're completely clueless every time there's (rumor of) a gift (is it real, is it fake? is it going to be reported, but maybe in a few years from now when the minutes of a meeting are finally published? or was it approved by one of hundreds of employees? how to find out, other than by asking every single person?);
  • there was an obvious path to transparency for the biggest gifts, in that they at least were supposed to end up being mentioned in the minutes of a board meeting, which used to be published regularly;
  • and both the preceding points joined to make it possible to have decent feedback and conversations when useful, without burdening anyone with reams of bureaucracy.

And no, "doing the absolute minimum required by law" is not an option for a Foundation which supposedly exists to promote free knowledge by means of open collaboration. Nemo 23:06, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Resolution about the upcoming Board elections

Latest comment: 3 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees met last week to decide on a plan for the 2021 Board elections. The Board Governance Committee created this proposal, based on the Call for Feedback about Community Board Seats. Please check the related announcement for details. Qgil-WMF (talk) 18:18, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

Open Letter from Arbcoms to the Board of Trustees

Latest comment: 2 years ago57 comments54 people in discussion

Dear Board of Trustees,

This is an open letter from arbitrators and arbitration committees from across the Wikimedia movement.

We have followed closely the process of the creation of the Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC). We know that many small communities do not have a basic set of rules, so it's hard for new editors to have a good sense of what is allowed and what not. Additionally, we encourage the creation of basic rules of conduct for all wikis to ensure that nobody gets treated poorly. Editors in our communities wish to have an environment conducive to creating high quality content. We do not want to see editors discriminated against based on opinion, culture, sexuality, etc. Editors should be judged by their editing. In our experience, the global community and our projects will generally endorse rules that ensure no individual is a victim of discrimination or hounding.

However, we are concerned about the enforcement of the UCoC and concerned about how that enforcement will be viewed on our projects. The lack of formal consultation with projects before the board approved the UCoC means it risks being seen as imposed by the Wikimedia Foundation from above, rather than being seen as a legitimate community endeavor. Several of our projects have seen major damage and harm done when the communities have come into conflict with the Wikimedia Foundation (for instance dewiki with SUPERPROTECT and enwiki with FRAMGATE). We do not want that to happen with the Universal Code of Conduct as that could undermine the benefits it has to offer for projects without well-developed policies, systems, and experience for dealing with editor behavior. Recent changes to the timeline to allow for more consultation and discussion are a positive step.

It is therefore vital that projects with more sophisticated governing systems, like ours, be formally involved in the next step of the UCoC process. We note the recent call for a new committee to draft the second phase. At least one person with experience as an arbitrator, or similar experience dealing with complex and difficult behavior issues, should be added as a member of the drafting committee, and at least one additional person with this experience, or experience as a Steward, should be added as an advisor.

We understand that individual projects cannot be given a veto over the implementation of the UCoC. However, we hope that you understand that individual projects must feel committed to whatever enforcement mechanisms arise. Without this sense of investment and partnership the UCoC will ultimately fail. Mere consultation is insufficient. A formal process for ratifying the UCoC enforcement system is necessary.

The UCoC must also be a living document. The community is changing and evolving and so has universal behavior. We know that this is a different document than if it had been created 10 years ago, and we feel that universal norms will be different in 10 years. A way to amend the Universal Code of Conduct must be added, and this amendment process should build on lessons learned to date to ensure that communities and individuals have a chance for meaningful input before any amendment is adopted.

Wikipedia and other projects are only possible because of the hard work of editors at communities to create and maintain the incredible store of knowledge available. This path is longer, but hasty decisions and decisions that lack legitimacy in the eyes of the volunteers they effect could cause real damage to our communities and the work we do. In the words of the Wikimedia Foundation values, "Collaboration is not always easy. Sometimes we struggle. Working together is hard, but it’s worth it. We do it because it makes us stronger." We ask you to be stronger together with us.

Sincerely,

Signing members of the cswiki-arbcom

Signing on behalf of the dewiki-arbcom

For the enwiki-arbcom

Signing members of the frwiki-arbcom

For the plwiki-arbcom

Signing members of the ruwiki-arbcom

Signing members of the ukwiki-arbcom

Signing members of the pswiki-arbcom

Hello ArbComs,
The Board’s Community Affairs Committee (CAC in short) highly appreciates your letter, which is a great example of global collaboration. Composing the text, encouraging the creation of basic rules of conduct for all wikis, and recognizing that users should be protected from discrimination and hounding, is an excellent step towards the upcoming global functionary meeting.The Board is naturally following on all UCoC developments, and more specifically, the CAC is very interested in the coming meeting and following more closely.
The committee will carefully study both your letter, with its three constructive proposals, and any additional outcomes from the coming functionary meeting, in advance of our own next meeting, so we can discuss it at our first opportunity. We hope to respond more substantively after that next meeting, which takes place the week after yours. On behalf of the CAC, Shani (WMF) (talk) 22:50, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
Adding to Shani's excellent response, with a more personal touch: It is refreshing and really great to receive a constructive, thoughtful letter, with a sensible proposed path. Thank you. The analysis and the overall proposed direction make perfect sense to me, and both CAC and the Board will definitely look into details. Pundit (talk) 06:47, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
Speaking for myself, I appreciate the comments provided here by Pundit and Shani (WMF). Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:19, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
I fully agree with Barkeep. Best regards, Luke081515 18:01, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
Hello ArbComs,
Following up on the CAC's initial response, I wanted to let you know that the CAC has read and thought about your open letter, as well as studied what came out of the functionary meeting that was recently held. Maggie, in her briefing to us about that meeting, remarked on how constructive the contributions from attendees were.
Regarding your 3 asks:
1) We agreed with you and with Foundation staff that you are important to the UCoC process and should be included in the drafting committee. We appreciate those of you who volunteered and are happy to see you involved.
2) Staff will be working with the stakeholders on whether and how to host a vote about the UCoC enforcement outline;we agree that a formal process of ratification of this enforcement outline is important.
3) Foundation staff will also be working with various stakeholders, including the new drafting committee, to formalize our commitment to having the UCoC be periodically reviewable (and amendable during those reviews).
Thank you again for all the time and effort you have put into this matter, and for your extremely useful thoughts. Best, Shani (WMF) (talk) 20:27, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

The Global Council, the CEO transition, and the global Wikimedia ambassador

Latest comment: 3 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

During Katherine Maher's term as WMF ED/CEO, she has taken on a lot of the responsibilities of basically being a "global ambassador" for the Wikimedia movement: giving speeches, doing interviews, and explaining what Wikimedia is to the broader world. While she has done an excellent job at this, I think it would be worthwhile to reconsider whether this should be part of the WMF ED/CEO role long-term. There are two problems:

  • This ambassador role takes away from the work of actually managing the Foundation, which is an extraordinarily tasking job in its own right, and quite important.
  • We end up having the public "face" of the global, volunteer-oriented movement being a Silicon Valley executive, which is I would guess is quite bad for conveying who we are, and probably adds a fair bit of incongruity to our public image.

The upcoming Global Council is specifically intended to be "representative of the Movement in its role and composition". I think it would be fitting if a new role were created, appointed by the Global Council (perhaps specifically from its own membership, perhaps not), to be the "face" of the movement. This would allow our public identity to be closer to the communities,

The reason I'm bringing this up now is that, if this is to be done, it has nearer-term implications for the CEO Transition Team's search. In such a case, I would recommend that the Transition team not specifically look for a charismatic figure who can effectively present Wikimedia's mission to the public (having experience as a "key spokesperson", per the current prospectus), or at least not particularly prioritize those abilities. --Yair rand (talk) 19:06, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, @Yair rand:. Acknowledging receipt of your note. The Transition Committee is already considering this. Best Shani (WMF) (talk) 20:01, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

When will we have a legitimate board again?

Latest comment: 3 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion

The only legitimacy of the board derives from the elections by the community, and those have been postponed for far too long now. So the current board has a significant diminished legitimacy, thus must not decide anything really important, until the next proper legitimisation has been done, i.e. the next election has been done. When will this process finally be started? There is really no excuse for this any longer, as Covid-19 is no real excuse for an online grassroots organisation at all. Grüße vom Sänger ♫(Reden) Hold the election 07:08, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, @Sänger:. Please see Quim's note below. This is a high priority for the board and WMF staff and we are working on resolving it. Best, Shani (WMF) (talk) 20:05, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
More then overdue, the only legitimacy of the board derives from the elections by the community, the board has no other legitimacy. Grüße vom Sänger ♫(Reden) Hold the election 20:11, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
Soon. I agree with you that elective legitimacy relies on proper process. It was delayed not to obfuscate things, but because of the heavy overload of the pandemic on the staff, and the community - and arguably running elections at suboptimal time would also lead to poor legitimacy. In any case, we're on a good track. Pundit (talk) 06:53, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
Latest comment: 3 years ago2 comments1 person in discussion

Noble members of the Board of Trustees, I would like to draw attention to a serious safety issue for volunteer editors. In User talk:AKeton (WMF)#Legal guidelines and intervention the AKeton (WMF), Jrogers (WMF) and JSutherland (WMF) did not answer the direct question about the existence of fundamental guidelines that editor/users should follow to prevent biographers, companies, etc. from threatening editors/users by legal or even illegal means as well as to access WMF's "Defense of Contributors" program if this should occur. I mean objective guidelines, obviously.

Silence from WMF's legal repesentanets must mean that these guidelines do not exist, and I think it is critical that they be created immediately. In addition, of course the silence of WMF's highest legal representatives is a personal protection for them, but it puts all editors at risk; it would be more appropriate to say that there are no such guidelines, so that measures could be taken --Felipe da Fonseca (talk) 11:45, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Noble members of the Board of Trustees: I would like to let you know that I have just received a reply from Jrogers (WMF) (diff), who informed me that there are no general guidelines. Despite his reasons, I am particularly against this policy and would like to, if possible, discuss the topic, best, --Felipe da Fonseca (talk) 18:25, 6 May 2021 (UTC).

June Board meeting update

Latest comment: 3 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Hi all, on June 1st and 2nd, the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees had our regular meeting for Quarter 4 (April – June) of the Foundation’s fiscal year. We will have more details about what transpired at the meeting once the minutes have been prepared and approved, but we wanted to quickly release this brief update on some key topics and decisions:

  • We have unanimously approved the Call for Candidates for the 2021 selection process for Community-and Affiliate selected Trustees. There is a revised timeline that accommodates the implementation of single transferable vote in the SecurePoll extension, as follows:
    • June 9 - 29: Call for candidates
    • June 30 - July 2: Announcement of confirmed candidates
    • July 7 - August 3: Candidates campaign and answer questions
    • August 4 - 17: Voting
    • August 18 - 24: Vote counting and processing
    • August 25: Announcement of vote results
    • August 25 - 31: Foundation vetting of selected candidates
    • September: Board appoints selected candidates

More information on the process will follow over the next few weeks.

  • We have unanimously approved a committee evolution plan to maintain and improve the Board’s effectiveness, to be implemented in stages.
  • We have unanimously approved the donation of $5 million in FY 2020-21 to the Wikimedia Endowment.
  • We have reviewed the proposed Annual Plan for the Foundation for 2021/22, and unanimously authorised the Audit Committee to approve minor adjustments to the 2021-22 fiscal year budget in response to Board input during the June meeting. More information on the Annual Plan will follow once the Audit Committee has met.
  • We also unanimously approved the minutes from the previous Board meeting, to be published on Foundation-Wiki.

On behalf of the Board, Raystorm (talk) 17:55, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Privacy, policies and democracy on it.wiki

Latest comment: 3 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

This is an open letter to the Board of Trustees.

The topic is the level of privacy, security and democracy on it.wiki. Since part of this discussion involves a user which is not only admin, bureaucrat and checkuser in that project but also global steward, checkuser and admin at meta, since there is a decision by the Ombuds Commission at the basis of this case, I think the issue is of interest of the whole community, in particular in view of the ongoing works on the UCoC.

As the board of trustees perhaps already know, I had sent a complaint to the Ombuds Commission in novembre 2019 on evidence that a checkuser was inappropriately targeting my account with repeated unmotivated checks. I was using open proxies but in a legitimate way (which the policy does not forbid); there was a case open on my user on the it.wiki but solely related to my perdurance in discussions, not due to any kind of abuse in my account activity (if someone from the it.wiki community come across, I ask, as I did many times already without a single answer, to point out edits that show any abuse on my side). The perdurance was in contending that an edit made by that very same checkuser was not correct and should be changed, because it goes against the project consensus on the general way to express such things. It resulted in a ban for me on it.wiki for one year. I started again to edit in January 2021. I left that issue aside and no complaint on my activity was raised between January 2021 and May 2021.

On April 24 I was informed that the Ombuds Commission had finished the investigation and that the checkuser had actually violated the CheckUser policy with routine unmotivated checks on my account.

On May 31 this checkuser was to be re-confirmed in his posistion and I voted against it, supporting my vote (since this is required) with a proof of the policy violation. I have since realized based on reactions that I did so in a formally incorrect way, since I pasted part of the text received via email. I sincerely apologize with the members of the Ombuds Commission which have then received strong attacks by some admins on the it.wiki. The reason I did so was that I wanted not to distort the exact words of the commission. I am ready to pay for this error (if it is) but I think this should be decided by the Commission and measures be taken by WMF, not being left in the hands of some it.wiki administrator.

After that vote, I received (together with the Commission) a couple of strong attacks that I tried to defend from, and in a couple of days I was indefinitely banned on it.wiki by the action of a single administrator. The reasons are anti-democratic to the point of even asserting that I abused the confirmation page since I had premeditated to vote against the re-election. No other administrators commented on this and complaints that I sent to them via the apposite wikimedia mail list seem to be entirely fruitless.

The reason why I question the level of democracy in the it.wiki community is that I fear the ban I received for voting against the checkuser re-election might just be the top of the iceberg.

In the it.wiki community there is no ArbCom, and checkusers are appointed by consensus. However, re-elections have been tied to confirmation in the role of administrators (CU are always sysops there), which are automatic unless there are at least 15 votes against it, after which an actual vote is needed. That is, the rules adopted by the community is that CU rights and sysop rights go hand in hand once acquired, both automatically confirmed unless there are 15 explicit votes against it. Now, explicitly voting against the automatic confirmation a powerful long-term administrator which is also a steward globally is something that no one with some long activity would dare to do (you need to have 500 edits at least to vote) unless there are entirely self-evident inappropriate behaviours which do not even need to be discussed. Previous cases of votes against long-term administrators (by far not so powerful anyway) in the italian wiki lead to huge fights against sub-portions of the community and it is understandable that no one wants to be the first that might trigger something like this. Much easier to close the eyes in front of some misbehaviour. Notice that as of today, 5 days after my vote and the discussion on the OmbCom investigation, only 10 people expressed explicit support to the checkuser confirmation (out of which 7 administrators, and we have something like 114 of them on it.wiki). That is, the community is entirely silent, and believe me it is not for lack of interest.

The reason I mentioned the level of privacy and security on the it.wiki is about my concern on the general level of control that checkusers have on each other. In this specific case, a global steward is also acting as an admin and checkuser in that project and the level of trust among peers is such that he could violate the CU policy for two months without any other CU noticing anything. I could notice the behaviour because I could keep track of everything, took the trouble to report to the Commission, wait for more than one year, finally deciding to report to the community accepting that I would face strong attacks. I wonder whether other cases just passed unnoticed and how much power that single community is allowed to have on this kind of important global privacy related issues (and on banning users which vote against an admin confirmation). The reaction of the checkuser and of some other administrators to the "leak" about the Ombuds Commission investigation was such that different components of the Ombuds Commission felt the need to clarify, in some way or the other, that the abuse was not so serious in the end in their personal opinion. I am not sure whether there will be an official statement by the Commission. LuxExUmbra (talk) 13:38, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

A few but important points

Latest comment: 3 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Dear Board of Trustees,

I have been a journalist for the past 20 years. I wrote numerous articles about social, cultural and political subjects. Several times, I came across Wikipedia as a source or as a subject of research. The reason I am writing is to mention a few but very important points that -in my opinion- ignoring could undermine the philosophy of Wikipedia.

1-First and foremost, anyone who is familiar with Wikipedia knows that its articles are not created necessarily by the best or most expert ones in each field. Mistakes, lack of facts and errors in prioritizing materials always are possible. However, for the general public who sees the Wikipedia link as the first search result on Google, Wikipedia is a reliable source. They find it easy to access, ad-free and a collection of related materials. To make them aware of those possible errors there is a need for a “DISCLAIMER” message on the top of EACH Wikipedia article (like “The following information could contain mistakes, could be incomplete or out of date…”).

2-Political and religious biases: Since Wikipedia is a popular platform, therefore it is an attractive target of propaganda. Although its guidelines are trying to minimize this issue, a huge gap still exists. In my study on Wikipedia Farsi, the admin team is seized by a group of highly politically motivated people. They have formed a propaganda machine using the Wikipedia platform. They ban and block those who question their political intentions. The fundamental issue is the lack of audit and verification by the Wikipedia Foundation. When there is no audit, even the press department of the foundation is not answering related questions asked by journalists (they did not answer mine), forming propaganda is not unlikely. I believe it is very important to have some sort of independent audition and verification above each language to preserve and protect the neutrality of Wikipedia. Without it, there could be more misinformation instead of information in some areas. I would be happy to present various examples of it if it helps.

3- Lack of proper training: Wikipedia encourages everyone to participate; on the other hand there are lots of details and specific terminology which makes it difficult for new users. On YouTube as a huge source of training videos, I was not able to find official and up to the date courses. This problem has other disadvantages: When older users want to get rid of a new user, they easily put them in the corner and find a way to ban or block those who are not in their favour. I believe asking available users to create training videos would be a great way to address this issue.

4- Lack of author evaluation: Finally, since anyone can join and edit Wikipedia articles, those with more edits (admins) have power over others. They can decide which edit is good or what should be reversed or removed. For example, if I edit a news article as part of my expertise and an admin without any knowledge of the news does not like what I did (it has happened) they reverse changes. If I insist, that admin can suspend my ID/IP. I believe if there was a mechanism of reviewing resumes (for those who are interested) by Wikipedia and giving each user special credit to edit articles related to their expertise, it would help a lot. By this, a new but expert user in a specific field i.e. physics has a higher voice when there are conflicts over the related content.Erfan2017 (talk) 19:49, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

Stop abuse and violence in Fawiki by checkusers

Latest comment: 3 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Hi Dear.

I sent a complaint to OC and reported that my account " shahramrashidi" has been blocked and banned in Fawiki as nominating Sockpuppetry, without any evidence. Even the user checking has not been requested by any in check user page. But the checkusers have blocked my account according to doubt only as their declaration. Which policy of WP tell you can block unlimited any user without evidence and with doubt only.

This is the response of OC: "The Commission is responsible for investigating complaints about infringements of the Privacy Policy, the Access to nonpublic personal data policy, the CheckUser policy, and the Oversight policy, on any Wikimedia project. The OC pays close attention to policies and their violations. Regarding the complaint relating to the block of User:Shahramrashidi for sockpuppet, the commission has found no violation of any of the aforementioned policies.

Shahramrashidi was blocked according to the Persian Wikipedia's (fawiki) sockpuppetry policy, which provides that a sockpuppet can be blocked without needing to identify the "sockmaster". The Commission is not an appeals body for blocks. The local community's appeal processes should be used in this case."

How do i tell and prove my account is not sockpuppet and the response of OC is about sockpuppet user only, then when my account is not sockpuppet, this policy is not applicable for my account. I asked OC to check my account is not sockpuppet and check users have abused from their facility and access, but instead of checking my account and their action has replied as a/m.

My question is can any check users block and ban any account as sockpuppet even it not to be sockpuppet? Who check this and stop their abuse? My account is not sockpuppet and check users abuse from their access. Please check my account in Fawiki and if my account to be sockpuppet, block me in all wiki projects else stop their abuse. please stop abuse from fawiki. i am ready to provide any document to prove my account is not sockpuppet and there is no any supervision on fawiki check users. Please return credit to fawiki. I wrote it here to inform you what happen in Fawiki.Shahramrashidi (talk) 06:07, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

Timeliness of publishing resolutions

Latest comment: 3 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

(Pinging User:CRoslof (WMF), who occasionally posts resolutions updates on foundationwiki.)

It's been a long time since Board resolutions were regularly published within hours or days of voting, but we currently have nothing more recent than mid-April on the resolutions list. Perhaps someone could do something about this? --Yair rand (talk) 05:38, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

Trustee priorities - not enough focus on wiki tech keeping pace with peers

Latest comment: 3 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Dear team, thank you all for all you do.

Having briefly reviewed strategy, and trustee candidates views of priorities, my own view is that not enough attention is being placed on keeping the user experience (i.e. wiki technology) up to near the state of the art level in commercial practice. If wiki becomes relatively clunky and /or old looking, I fear this will rapidly impact both its credibility and the appetites to engage of both users and editors. It may be that to do this requires significant innovation in partnerships and/or funding.

[P.s. in terms of mission, it is very valuable that wiki does continue strongly, in a world in which other information sources may be increasingly taken over by organisations with questionable/evil motives.].

All best wishes JCJC777 10.00, 27 Aug 2021 [UTC]

Is there any evidence that "commercial practice", whatever that means, is getting any better? What I see in the proprietary software world is a continuous degradation of user experience. Nemo 09:31, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation Board Statement on Wikimedia Enterprise revenue principles

Latest comment: 3 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Please find Wikimedia Foundation Board Statement on Wikimedia Enterprise revenue principles published here and copied here --NTymkiv (WMF) (talk) 15:09, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

Feedback requested on draft Wikimedia Foundation Conflict of Interest Policy

Latest comment: 3 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Hi all, The Wikimedia Foundation legal team has posted a draft of an updated conflict of interest policy on Meta-Wiki.

Feedback collection began early November. Feedback collection on the policy updates lasts until 22 November. If you have not provided feedback and wish to do so, please do that on the talk page by the 22 November.

The updated policy will replace the current Conflict of Interest Policy for Board Members, Officers, Executives, and Key Employees. Note: This is not related to any policies or issues regarding paid/conflict of interest editing of the projects. It is about conflicts of interest that may arise in connection with an individual’s executive or Board role at the Wikimedia Foundation.

In preparing the updated policy, the legal team consulted model conflict of interest policies, guidance regarding best practices for conflict of interest policies, outside legal experts on non-profit governance, and the points raised in the community discussion on conflicts of interest earlier this year.

Please review the draft policy and leave any feedback you have on the talk page. In particular, the legal team is interested in identifying any aspects of the policy where the language or procedure is not clear. They also want to know if there are any gaps in the policy: are there any conflict of interest situations that cause you concern and that the policy does not seem to cover?

The Governance Committee of the Board of Trustees has reviewed the draft policy, and will review it again following the feedback period. It will then go before the full Board to be approved and adopted.

Thank you to anyone who takes the time to read the draft policy. Best, JKoerner (WMF) (talk) 16:31, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

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