Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 02:39, 29 September 2023

Discuss this story

• It's sad that, three weeks on, the lengthy and painful Smallcat dispute at ArbCom hasn't had a mention in the Signpost: it led to the departure of a long-standing and prolific editor who will be missed by many editors. Last month's "News and notes" said it was compiled in a hurry, and was only 5 days after the end of the case, but I was surprised not to see a mention this time. (I know, "Sofixit", but I don't have the energy to produce a calm neutral summary of those weeks and walls of text.) PamD 07:24, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
  • There's a rather special one ongoing, too. We'll see. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:14, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
• On a side note, is it just me, or has the AfI project slowed down as of late? I've been nominating a few articles myself, but I've noticed there's not much interaction over there... Oltrepier (talk) 08:18, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

  AFI has definitely been struggling, but not just recently. Its processes are highly automated, thanks to excellent work by MusikAnimal, so it can run on a skeleton crew, but there just hasn't been participation. The nomination process is the most active part, but even there, there isn't a sufficient stable of regulars to help build a good culture (I'd ideally like to see it become a place that helps reduce systemic bias rather than becoming cluttered with nominations of articles in editors' favorite subject areas, which has the opposite effect). And then the articles that do become AFI barely get any attention. {{u|Sdkb}}  16:28, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

• One more global ban: m:Special:CentralAuth/Mykytal 14 August 2023 --ssr (talk) 12:41, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

  This account is a sock of a banned user, as it was not locked by WMF and m:List of globally banned users doesn't include this account. Thanks. SCP-2000 16:44, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

• "Some initiatives have caused controversy, such as the $20,000 project on Deforestation in Nigeria". More of that under discission here: User talk:BilledMammal/2023 Wikimedia RfC. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:15, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
• In my opinion, the problem of the illusion of control is underestimated or misunderstood. There are not many suitable opportunities to influence the community and the influx of new members. Misplaced Pages and its sister projects can be compared to a network of networks or to forests (self-sustaining ecosystems), but with actual people. You can't just bring in rabbits or plant flowers like you would on a farm or in a city park. You can't even open a furniture factory. You cannot manage a community, truly direct its movement, or plan by incentives.
  There are not many potential editors (few%), and they are very different and they have different interests. Misplaced Pages, sister projects and related organizations ("Wikimedia movement") are not a simple product of literacy, Internet speed, particular language, social group, education, gender, "race", etc.
  Misplaced Pages in the Future is unlikely to be just Misplaced Pages+, Misplaced Pages 1.2 or even Misplaced Pages 2.0, and the process of its formation will be mostly or partially spontaneous and not very well predicted today, IMHO--Proeksad (talk) 10:39, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

AARoads

• AARoads is interesting. Let's assume they succeed and are better than Misplaced Pages versions - more up to date, comprehensive. In theory we can copy their content, but this is difficult to maintain, merging diffs would be a hell that never ends. Another possibility is to simply join them ie. redirect our pages to their Wiki. If users want to contribute, they log in there. Like an Empire that is absorbing but not eliminating cultures it encounters. All roads lead to Rome (Misplaced Pages) but not all Roman territory is strictly Roman culture. -- GreenC 05:20, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
  • I think the general consensus is that most of these roads are entirely mundane and it's unreasonable for an encyclopedia to maintain articles on them when there's virtually no meaningful coverage beyond "it appeared in an atlas". Frustration with that fact is what prompted them to leave in the first place. If this fork means less volunteer energy is spent on maintaining hollow articles, then I say it's a positive. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 05:33, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
    • Yes, AfD was probably hard on them like many topics (sports, BLPs, small organizations). How this information gets used and how important it is has been totally upended by generative AI. Misplaced Pages basis notability on a somewhat outdated model, that of the attention economy: if people paid attention to it (sources) it is notable. However AI requires high quality input data, and sites like AARoads provide that. The more data AI has, the better. Gaps in knowledge reduce effectiveness. AI is not the only use of this data, but it is a good example how the Misplaced Pages model of notability is limiting knowledge. -- GreenC 15:32, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

      @GreenC, AfD isn't being hard on roads and sports. It's starting to require them to meet the same standards as any other topic, which to them feels like persecution because they're accustomed to not having to do so. Why there weren't equitable standards in the first place is, of course, totally unknowable. {{u|Sdkb}}  15:59, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

      Regarding the data argument, a wider scope won't lead to higher-quality content unless there are more contributors. In fact, generally the opposite, since more dispersed content is harder to maintain. And there's no reason to believe that AARoads will have more contributors than the roads wikiproject, especially since it doesn't have all of Misplaced Pages's built-in advantages (e.g. an established readership base, SEO preference, etc.) and will have to compete with Misplaced Pages. {{u|Sdkb}}  16:04, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

    @Thebiguglyalien, the problem is that the AARoads wiki won't just have the non-notable roads, but also duplicates of the notable ones on Misplaced Pages. It's the classic problem of wasted effort you get with any fork, and it's overall bad for the information landscape. {{u|Sdkb}}  16:06, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

    If general consensus is that most of these roads are entirely mundane, then it sounds like the "general consensus" is to delete almost all of them. So this duplication of content seems to be a red herring.

    AARoads has been around since 2000 - longer than Misplaced Pages, has an established readership base, and already has new non-Misplaced Pages contributors.

    At some point, as more and more of these subject-specific forks emerge, I would suggest reconsidering this crusade on notability. Rschen7754 21:59, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

    More to the point, one thing that I haven't seen brought up in many discussions of the fork is that Misplaced Pages editing environment has simply become too obnoxious for the road editors to want to deal with anymore. On Misplaced Pages, you are forced to spend more time playing boring and tedious policy games to justify an article's existence than you do actually writing it. I was here because I liked doing research and writing articles, not because I wanted to play policy grab-ass with whatever random municipal code enforcement wannabee stumbled onto the project talk page that particular day. Editing AARoads is actually fun, like Misplaced Pages was when I first joined (but isn't anymore). —Scott5114↗ 19:29, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

    On Misplaced Pages, you are forced to spend more time playing boring and tedious policy games to justify an article's existence than you do actually writing it. What I don't understand is that it is so easy to avoid those "boring and tedious policy games". There are so many articles left to be created that are easy to demonstrate meet and exceed the standards of GNG and whose notability will be in no way controversial; editors who wish to avoid debates over notability should chose to create these articles, rather than choosing to create articles that they should know will be controversial. BilledMammal (talk) 06:28, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

    I wish them prosperity in their independence. That doesn't mean they were right in the various controversies they suffered here in the Empire; I just hope they can contribute better to their particular corner of the world now that they are outside. Particularly, they might be able to cooperate more fully with OpenStreetMap than we do. Links from ENWP to their site will sometimes be appropriate; citations maybe not. It's kind of like what I sometimes do in Simple English WP, linking to the corresponding Citizendium article (Remember Citizendium? Been teetering on the edge of death for years.) when appropriate. Jim.henderson (talk) 20:22, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

    @Jim.henderson: On that point, I've been wondering if the guideline against linking to forks would apply to a specialized fork such as the AARoads Wiki. I assume the guideline arose to avoid a heap of links to content mills, but this wiki certainly doesn't fit that description. Anyways, if its editors' fears of Misplaced Pages policy creep are borne out, then links to the AARoads Wiki would be complementary, not redundant.

    With my mapper hat on, I'm excited about the opportunity for the AARoads community to collaborate with OpenStreetMap (and OpenHistoricalMap). Together, in just a few months, we've already developed interactive maps that provide a richer user experience and tighter Wikidata integration than what the Wikimedia Foundation has been able to provide exclusively to Misplaced Pages. The AARoads editors have been helping OSM keep up with changes on the ground, which in turn benefits Misplaced Pages's articles about not only roads but also places and events.

    It's a shame that so much unhappiness led to this point, but we're all still part of the same information landscape of open knowledge, and we look up to the ideals that Misplaced Pages stands for, even if the reality is much messier. I hope the community here will continue to embrace its role as the standard-bearer for wiki-style open-mindedness.

     – Minh Nguyễn  02:36, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

With respect to the US Roads editors, all of whom I respect, this is all enormously disappointing. First, I haven't seen y'all identify any specific policy changes that you believe are needed, except for those proposed in the RfC linked in this Signpost article. That RfC did solve what I saw as the single biggest problem facing the project—citations to maps, now enshrined at WP:ORMEDIA. Plus, proposal 3 was awfully close to passing and should have been re-proposed in a new discussion. (And outside all of that, WP:GEOROAD still exists...)

Second, the linked discussion dwells heavily on concerns with systemic bias and roads outside North America, neither of which are solved by a North American-specific fork.

Third, y'all's linked announcement post is not "simplified", as it claims, but is flatly inaccurate (e.g. "maps cannot be used" when that enormous RfC linked above concluded otherwise). So yeah, I'm disappointed at y'all's decision to embrace a slow but near-certain death on an obscure new website, and I hope that a day will come when you decide to re-join us. Ed  01:00, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

@The ed17: With all due respect, there are so many factual errors in the above post.

• That RfC did solve what I saw as the single biggest problem facing the project: did it? We saw question 1, "can maps be valid sources?" as a no-brainer, especially when tables, charts, and graphs were thrown in. The fact that a significant number of editors, especially well-respected ones, were opposing such a softball question was an ominous sign for the future and signified that a large portion of the opposition was more interested in a certain conclusion being reached (that would de facto result in the end of covering roads in any sort of intellectually honest manner on Misplaced Pages) than in looking at the question in a fair and unbiased manner. This was not to mention the numerous vitriolic personal attacks and casting of aspersions that were made there. The failure of the other proposals had already been used to attack long-standing methods of sourcing in road articles, for example at Misplaced Pages:Featured article candidates/Interstate 40 in Tennessee/archive2, such as using Google Maps. Even so, numerous editors have tried to water down the conclusion of question 1:
• And outside all of that, WP:GEOROAD still exists but not for long, see and combine it with and you tell me what is going to happen.
• The fork focuses on North America because that is the largest editor base, but many efforts were made to reach out to other international editors. We still intend to expand to other countries one day, but it would be hypocritical of us to mass import a bunch of unsourced stubs without attempting to exercise due diligence and at least clean them up first.
• but is flatly inaccurate (e.g. "maps cannot be used" when that enormous RfC linked above concluded otherwise) That quote is taken out of context.
• obscure new website again, AARoads has been around since 2000, and given that, of the other options we could have chosen, or going completely independent, this was the option most likely to be around in 10 years. By the way, that includes English Misplaced Pages.

Rschen7754 01:09, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

@Rschen7754: I appreciate your thoughts. Before I respond in detail, let me try a proactive question: from the perspective of road editors, what would our policies ideally say? Or are y'all attempting to maintain the status quo?

My RfC thought was an opinion ("what I saw"), not an factual assertion. The proposal passed with the closer stating "it is clear that the policy rationales provided by those opposing were not particularly strong", which is ... telling. And again, proposal 3 was awfully close to passing and might still with another RfC. Heck, it might already arguably fall under Misplaced Pages:What SYNTH is not#SYNTH is not obvious II right this second. Staying here gives y'all the chance to shape and influence related discussions, while leaving detracts valuable perspectives. Sausage doesn't make itself.

I do appreciate your second link re: GEOROAD, but discussions are how Misplaced Pages functions, and despite the high volume (Scott's participation there appears to have been enormously unhelpful) there are only a small number of editors participating. I would hope/expect things to change if/when it hits the RfC phase, much like how that first link appears to be facing significant opposition.

I'm glad to hear that there are plans to expand beyond the North American continent.

I apologize and have struck the inaccuracy comment, having missed that the bullet points specifically referred to notability, but has showing up on a map ever contributed to notability?

That AARoads has been around since 2000 doesn't mean it's not obscure, and it's my opinion that this fork will end up like the others: 1) a lot of wasted/duplicated effort that's wasted on a few readers and 2) a dwindling number of editors as people inevitably drift away over time and no one replaces them. Ed  01:59, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

Really, all we have been attempting to do is maintain the status quo. We believe in notability: I submitted the most road AFDs that I ever have this year (and even lost a few on London city streets). We believe in sourcing: in the event the decision was made to stay, I had a list of resources and was planning on leading a sourcing drive. We do not believe that proposals such as this source it now or it gets deleted in 2 weeks are conducive for editor health and retention.

Staying here gives y'all the chance to shape and influence related discussions, while leaving detracts valuable perspectives Does it? To copy what I wrote elsewhere: It was clear that this would just be the first of a long series of debates, and given the spread to other areas such as area codes, that what would be needed would essentially be a campaign to Save Misplaced Pages. Speaking for myself - maybe ten years ago I could have done such a thing, but not now, and even if successful, it would have come at a great personal cost (time, energy, mental health). Misplaced Pages is (or was) a great website, but it's just a website, we're all volunteers, and this is supposed to be a hobby. So we chose to fork at this point because we care about our editor base and did not want to lose them in a never-ending sea of discussion after discussion aimed at eliminating us from the project.

AARoads remains the center of the road community in North America, including many who are sworn off Misplaced Pages because of the notability and sourcing requirements.

I really hope that almost 18 years as an administrator, and even 1 as a steward have shown my commitment to the project. It was not an easy decision, however during several of these discussions quitting and doing absolutely nothing seemed (and still seems) like a more palatable option than continuing on English Misplaced Pages as it is. I am grateful that others felt that way and chose to reach out to AARoads, because otherwise I would be down a hobby. Rschen7754 02:21, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

I suggest doing more research into AARoads when you have the time. It is most certainly not an obscure website. One only has to take a look at the number of members on the AARoads forums for example to see that. — MatthewAnderson707 (talk|sandbox) 05:12, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

I'm sure there's an active community, and in no way am I intending to insult anyone—but in the grand scheme of things it is obscure. Per Similarweb, it gets about 200k hits per month. For comparison, Similarweb estimates that meta.wikimedia.org gets nearly five times that. Ed  05:21, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

I think it's comparing apples and oranges, or maybe pumpkins and kumquats. On an Internet dominated by search engines, a road-focused site doesn't even need to come within a few orders of magnitude to have a significant impact. Going independent will probably cut both ways. On the one hand, there will be less opportunity for Misplaced Pages's readers to stumble upon a well-researched road article and fall down that rabbit hole, maybe catching the roadgeek bug before the night is through. On the other hand, it could bring more visibility to the topic area among netizens in general, just as other specialized wikis have over the years. Minh Nguyễn  21:35, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

Yes, the internet is dominated by search results, and Google heavily downranks forks/upranks Misplaced Pages. A decade out, Wikivoyage has been unable to overcome that challenge despite having clearly superior content to Wikitravel. AARoads' wiki will fail. The only question is whether it will fail quickly or fail slowly. It will be better for the content area and reduce duplicated editor effort if it fails quickly. Unfortunately, past precedent shows that failed ideas on wikis tend to wither slowly (see Simple English Misplaced Pages, portals, outline articles, etc.). {{u|Sdkb}}  22:17, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

You're more optimistic about the English Misplaced Pages retaining road articles on notability grounds than some of the AARoads folks are. To the extent that Google will see significant duplication, it'll undermine the rhetoric in this discussion about how USRD was wrong about notability and sourcing. Honestly, I share your skepticism about Misplaced Pages forks in general. I've been around long enough to chuckle at failed forks of multiple Wikipedias that I've been a part of. But I also appreciated the modicum of competition for mindshare that the more serious forks provided Misplaced Pages. If that resulted in a stronger, more useful Misplaced Pages, what is there to complain about? That said, this situation feels slightly different to me because the AARoads folks are being ruthlessly realistic about their scope and ambitions, something that previous forks could have learned from. Minh Nguyễn  23:00, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

Maybe it would be more accurate and fun to characterize the AARoads Wiki as a specialized fork – a spork! Minh Nguyễn  00:15, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

Heh. Alpha3031 (t • c) 15:10, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

What do you consider a success? Honest question. TCN7JM 23:45, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

Readers. {{u|Sdkb}}  06:49, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

There's the disconnect. Given that most of the friction here is on account of the content even being allowed to exist on the site, being able to host it on our own terms makes the fork automatically a success. (Highly recommend giving any of the discussion on the GEOLAND talk page another read if you aren't convinced that content being removed from enwiki is inevitable.)

We're really not trying to do anything too crufty and most of our research standards are going to be the same as they were when the content was still hosted on enwiki (on account of having most of the same core userbase if nothing else). The critical benefit is that we can now consistently decide what should and should not be covered and not have to arbitrarily (and yes, it is inherently arbitrary) kill some coverage because people with little to no experience in the subject area have decided that they know more than us.

The fact is that for any subject that exists, there are details on that subject that are 1) necessary to include for comprehensive coverage, but 2) of little individual importance to a general audience. The existence of those little details is what originally gave Misplaced Pages the reputation it has today, which I think is pretty clearly more of a positive than a negative unless you're a no-nonsense academic who incorrectly thinks this site is exclusively supposed to house work worthy of inclusion in a PhD thesis. But now the removal of this type of content has become the obsession of several people who fit this description, so we need somewhere else to put our work.

It is what it is. TCN7JM 03:34, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

None of the friction here is "on account of the content even being allowed to exist on the site" the two sides here are "should have dedicated articles" and "should be in a list or article about the state highway system." There is no "purge this content from the site" side as far as I am aware. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:00, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, merging some articles to lists in a seemingly arbitrary fashion necessarily removes some content. You know this, otherwise there'd be no reason your side has been so heavily pushing for it. C'mon buddy, you're smarter than this. TCN7JM 02:33, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

@The ed17: You aren't the only one who hopes for a future reunification. But for now, there's clearly a trust deficit, and others have pointed to the mental/emotional toll that Misplaced Pages politics have taken on them. Steering a giant multinational conglomerate of a wiki is hard work! So maybe a split is the healthiest move. If roads editors get to spend more time churning out articles than talk page posts, that's a long-term win for readers, wherever the content ends up. I have no evidence to back this up, but I suspect that articles written by happy editors end up being higher quality. If not, at least these editors – fellow human beings – get some quality of life back. Minh Nguyễn  01:46, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for your perspective, Minh. I hope that despite my pessimism this does indeed end up in best-case scenario territory. Ed  02:01, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

I'm very happy to see WikiRoads finally fork. It's a best-of-both-worlds solution; AARoads and Misplaced Pages will both be better off for it. I hope some of the other WikiProjects/editor-groups follow suit, those dedicated to creating comprehensive databases of certain topics (roads, trains, video games, TV episodes, etc.), all those areas where WP:GNG is a real obstacle would be better served by having their own websites. Levivich (talk) 14:26, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages would be lucky to have dedicated and devoted editors within topic areas, and it is an unquestionable loss when they can not be accommodated. My sense is they left not because of concerns with maintaining the pages, the "road editors" could do that; or even because of differing opinions about notability, sources for most things could be found as mentioned above. Rather, whenever there is a strong group of people working together, it is a threat to wikipedia's sense of egalitarianism. If the "road editors" are able to group together in AfD, or on page edits, the non-road-editors will find that threatening. Particularly if there are off-site communications and forums. The end result will be bad faith. From there it's a matter of time before people leave or give up. Thus we might reconsider how to handle this phenomenon of sub-group communities, when problem arise. Surely there are lessons from groups that work. -- GreenC 16:01, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

It hasn’t been my perception that WikiProject U.S. Roads saw things as us-versus-them from the outset. If anything, its members saw themselves as bona fide Wikipedians and quite often served as apologists for Misplaced Pages among the broader roadgeek community. Outside of the English Misplaced Pages bubble, there are many communities where you’ll easily find skepticism and cynicism about Misplaced Pages based on bad first impressions. (I list myself as a member of USRD but have always been on the periphery, as a generalist. Still, I know the feeling well from over a decade of trying to bring the Misplaced Pages and OSM communities closer together, and just in ordinary interactions with laypeople.)

Fielding these sentiments on a regular basis gives one a certain perspective about community-building and encyclopedia-writing and encyclopedia-reading that one simply cannot get by holing up in the project namespace. For better or worse, this same perspective makes it easier to see Misplaced Pages as just another crowdsourced encyclopedia. To the extent that there was off-site collaboration among the USRD members, I have to imagine that it would’ve resembled an emotional support group in the runup to the decision to leave. People don’t break up after so many years out of sheer malice.

 – Minh Nguyễn  16:45, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

You’ll easily find skepticism and cynicism about Misplaced Pages based on bad first impressions within the English Misplaced Pages bubble as well :-) I watched the linked TikTok and I thought it was a good summary of the issues: the project of writing about every road cannot be done within the confines of enwiki policy. The solution is to do the roads project somewhere other than enwiki. I hope other groups of editors working on similar incompatible projects learn this lesson and follow suit. It's not a breakup, it's just about not trying to put a square peg (like someone looking at a map and writing what they see) in a round hole (an encyclopedia that summarizes secondary sources rather than publishing original analysis). Breakups are sometimes healthy and productive, as sometimes some partners really are better off separate than together. People who want to write articles about topics for which there is no GNG sourcing, and Misplaced Pages, are two such partners. Levivich (talk) 17:15, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

You make such arguments across every subject area and you will no longer have a Misplaced Pages. --Rschen7754 18:07, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

You'll have an encyclopedia instead. GNG is not an obstacle when writing encyclopedia articles about science, math, art, history, athletics, etc. It's not a problem when writing about transportation, either. It is a problem if you're trying to write an article about every road, or every train station, everyone who ever played pro sports, every fictional character, etc. It doesn't make much sense to put all of these together in one website. The website that summarizes Confucius and quantum mechanics does not also need to have an article about every road in New Jersey. The roads information is much better suited for a separate website that specializes in roads information (with lots of interactive maps!). The sports statistics information is similarly better suited for a separate website (with filterable and searchable tables!). The fictional characters database is also better for another website (with fair use images that aren't licensed CC!). It's high time we all got on the same page about being on different pages. This is a big step that should save everybody time going forward, I'm glad to see it. Levivich (talk) 18:27, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

Okay. So now you have to find road (or sports, or whatever) editors who want to only write about what Misplaced Pages arbitrarily defines as notable, rather than what they actually believe is worthy of inclusion. Good luck. (And, we certainly never wanted to write about every road.) Rschen7754 18:43, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

It's not arbitrary: it's about summarizing secondary sources vs writing a secondary source. There are some editors who want to write a secondary source (about roads, individual athletes, Pokémon characters, etc.) and there also other editors (hundreds of thousands) who want to summarize secondary sources (about transportation, athletics, pop culture, etc.). Combining the two into one website has created much conflict, hopefully that's now decreased. Levivich (talk) 18:52, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

To be pedantic, the English Misplaced Pages is not the only Misplaced Pages either. There are some where secondary source summarizers don’t have to look over their shoulder quite as much. After all, GNG is an expression of an internal editorial goal but not the constitutional law of all epistemology. I’ll be very interested to see how this community coexists with the Abstract Misplaced Pages once it begins to take shape. Minh Nguyễn  19:09, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

True. Instead of AARoads, it could have been roads.wikimedia.org. Levivich (talk) 19:46, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

I was referring obliquely to other language editions that have different inclusion norms, but I guess Wikispecies might as well come into the conversation. 🤔 Minh Nguyễn  19:52, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

I was thinking of Wikidata, or Wikisource... there are Wikimedia projects with radically different inclusion criteria (and yes, some Wikipedias as well). Levivich (talk) 19:54, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

Slightly unrelatedly, I'm very curious as to what an expansive CONPOL¬N Misplaced Pages might look like (whether English or multilingual) and I'm wondering if something like abstract might allow the two to coexist with mostly the same editor pool and easy transfer of changes across... editions, let's call it, the same way people wish for it to help with cross language stuff. Alpha3031 (t • c) 15:22, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

I fully agree with this; I would support the creation of sports.wikipedia.org, roads.wikipedia.org, and any other wikiprojects that could function as a comprehensive database of the topic, and support us limiting the coverage in our encyclopedia to topics worthy of inclusion in an encyclopedia. Thinking about it, I might open a discussion with the sports communities about sports; it might be a preferable alternative to draftification. BilledMammal (talk) 07:05, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

That's a pretty extreme stance. Ed  20:34, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

Yeah absolutely, forking completionism to another site where you can actually have comprehensive directories regardless of sourcing is the right way to go about this. JoelleJay (talk) 23:59, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

You two had better take it easy. If your actions push more groups into forks, you might have to start editing in the article space because there won't be anyone else left. Regardless, it's no longer my battle, so I really don't care what you do. –Fredddie™ 00:04, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, wouldn't want to drive all those math editors into forking and dividing their cruft somewhere nicer and more stable... JoelleJay (talk) 06:15, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

That seems like a risky strategy, insofar as it sets up a series of conflicts with groups of fans, any one of which could wind up setting a completionist precedent that would endanger your aims. Wouldn't it make more sense to pull a core of notable articles onto something like a macropedia.wikimedia.org and build from there? There's already an excellent foundation for that at Misplaced Pages:Vital articles, and it would also sidestep the existing reputation of en.wikipedia as being crammed with miscellaneous knowledge which has received only a cursory vetting for general notability. Choess (talk) 04:15, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

• The AARoads is being established on an admirably democratic basis. The founders seem to have learnt by experience that Misplaced Pages's claims of consensus are false. See their discussion of the matter for details. Andrew🐉(talk) 23:16, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

  I've always thought of consensus as a necessary complexity to put a finger on the scale towards consistency of decisions; it allows policies and guidelines to affect results, regardless of who turns up at the debate. However, I do wonder if for a project with a narrower scope and more homogeneous userbase a more pure democracy might work better; I wish them luck with the attempt. (I do find it a little amusing that their example is WP:LUGSTUBS; it would have been a simple and tidy result under a pure democracy, but not in the direction it appears they would support.) BilledMammal (talk) 07:05, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

  Another way to look at this is that a group of editors got away with enforcing a set of rules unendorsed by the wider community through brigading, but brigading stopped being an effective tool when massive community wide discussions like the maps one happened and this group of editors retreated to new territory... Where they effectively institutionalized brigading by instituting a strict one account one vote policy in a safe environment where they controlled access to accounts and once again had great superiority of numbers. Just an alternative way to look at the same set of facts. Note that in theory a dedicated group of editors could do this sort of thing repeatedly, forking whenever they lost the numerical advantage. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:03, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

  Love the smell of aspersion casting in the morning. LilianaUwU 01:41, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

I find it funny how there are individuals here spending and wasting so much time putting down the project and trying to make AARoads and USRD look bad in this discussion, rather than just move after saying good riddance. Can't even let the project just leave in peace? Be the bigger person and move on. There are more important things to focus on. In some cases, this behavior I'm seeing has the outward appearance of being driven by spite and petty grudges (though I could be very wrong in that assessment, just my two cents). The other reason, if I had to take a guess, is the idea that the AARoads fork could start a domino effect that causes the current deletionist trend and rhetoric to backfire on its proponents. Because it will. And if it keeps up, there will be more forks to follow, guaranteed. AARoads Wiki is a warning sign and because of that, they see it as a threat to their goals and asperations.— MatthewAnderson707 (talk|sandbox) 01:54, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

And if it keeps up, there will be more forks to follow, guaranteed. AARoads Wiki is a warning sign and because of that, they see it as a threat to their goals and asperations. I don't know if you noticed, but above a few of us were encouraging completionist forks. Completionism doesn't align with the purposes of an encyclopedia, and so it is neither suitable nor beneficial here, but that doesn't mean it isn't suitable or beneficial at specialized Wiki's. BilledMammal (talk) 02:12, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

I see we're in the kick someone when they are down phase? Ed  02:30, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

Not at all. I was just correcting a misconception that MatthewAnderson707 had about the goals and aspirations of curationists (a term I feel is much more accurate than the the hyperbolic "deletionists") like myself. BilledMammal (talk) 02:38, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

Global Council

Unless there are structural reforms of the By Laws / WMF so that 100% of WMF (except Jimbo) is elected by the community and only the community can change the byLaws, the Global Council is another way to get WMF back on course and keep it there. The Global Council should start out as equal authority to WMF and after it matures to be fully stable representative of the community, it should have authority over and direct WMF. Only "advisory" to WMF makes the whole Global Council idea pointless. North8000 (talk) 13:35, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

• As "external legal feedback" implies, it would be very, very difficult - likely impossible - for the WMF to give up total control, especially for some very basic functions such as fund raising, spending money, electing board members. This applies to any US corporation, and likely all non-US corporations and for-profit corps, the board has some functions that they just can't give away. My question is "who told you that they would be giving these functions away?" If they did do this, you were being misled, so please name specific people and include diffs. The other side of the question is "have you just been misleading yourselves?" Sorry to be so direct, but somebody has to be. The board cannot give up control of several major functions, to anonymous people (who might perhaps be sockpuppets) who might be elected anonymously, in order that the foundation can be responsible for dealing with the outside world, which would like to know that we're being legally responsible, paying our bills, and trying to fulfill our stated purpose. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 18:23, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

  @Jan-Bart, André Costa (WMSE), Nicola Zeuner (WMDE), and The Land: Any comment?

  (One thing worth noting here is that Wikimedia Germany is a membership organisation where the members vote for the board – unlike the WMF, which has always argued that a membership organisation is not feasible for the Wikimedia movement.) Andreas JN466 22:31, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

  And just for the record: WMDE has more than 100.000 members by now. Meaning the basic operation could be entirely funded by membership fees alone. The fundraiser is necessary for contributing WMF and for covering the activities that benefit the global projects (WikiData). --h-stt !? 19:35, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

  • Just one thing about my last sentence above. I realize now that some people might read it as if I am assuming that Global Council members are sockpuppets or similar. What I mean is that the WMF board is responsible for making sure that their members are responsible people with their real names disclosed, i.e. the WMF board must vet them. If the Global Council has a disagreement with the WMF on how to vet board members, then the WMF vetting method must be followed. That function must be done with WMF approval.
  • I'm not sure what the Wikimedia Germany factoid is supposed to mean. WMDE is a membership organization for one country that's supposed to aid German residents (about 1% of world population) edit Misplaced Pages projects - concentrating on the German WP version most likely. The WMF is responsible for setting up all WMF projects and helping anybody in the world to edit them, as well as providing the infrastructure. The comparing of these responsibilities is like comparing an apple orchard to a couple of orange seeds. How would you possibly run a membership organization where anybody in the world can join at anytime? BTW, in my experience the WMF is much more transparent that than WMDE, e.g. with finances. Maybe it's because I don't speak German, but I can't even find their basic financial statements (can anybody give me a link?) Smallbones_(smalltalk) 00:55, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

Smallbones, "Candidates must meet the voter eligibility criteria for WMF Board of Trustees elections to file nomination". The Drafting Committee is not anonymous. I assume that neither will the Global Council be anonymous. You should stop using your Signpost platform for spreading disinformation. – wbm1058 (talk) 03:36, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

@Smallbones: I don't even know where to begin.

• Finances: May I recommend m:Wikimedia_Deutschland where you'll find information in English, including links to the financial reports. (Wikimedia Germany's finances are a lot more transparent than those of the Wikimedia Endowment ... and unlike the WMF, it has committed to publishing the current salaries of its top management, in English and German.)
• Wikimedia Germany is an organisation with over 100,000 members, a staff headcount of close to 200 people (comparable to the size of the WMF a few years ago) and international movement responsibilities. The development of Wikidata e.g. was mainly driven by Wikimedia Germany.
• You do not have to be German to become a member of Wikimedia Germany. And the US represents about 4% of the world's population ... Seen from that perspective, both Germany and the US are grossly overrepresented in the Wikimedia movement's organisational footprint.

Andreas JN466 07:44, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

This would essentially be equivalent to making the board 100% community appointed, so perhaps we should focus on adding some community representation on the board?

Except wait, 8/16 seats on the WMF board are elected by the community, 7/16 are appointed by the rest, and 1/16 is Jimbo!

I think the system as it stands works well. It's poor form to not have any independent directors (i.e. 100% community) as outside uninterested perspectives help prevent corruption or self-dealing, as well as grants diverse perspectives. Look at how many admins on the English Misplaced Pages have been desysopped because they played buddy-buddy with certain people. Someone appointed from outside doesn't have the connections within the community to have conflicts of interest like that. They can also bring perspectives from other non-profits or corporations on ways to make our movement better, reducing groupthink.

Also, elections don't always lead to diverse candidates. Looking at the elected positions, all but 1 are from Western Europe or North America. There are no elected board members who are from India, Pakistan, Africa, or South America. Makes sense, given that Western Europe and North America hold our strongest communities. However, we do have appointed board members from South America and India. Being perfectly representative of our community is a disadvantage here, as we also want representation from the communities that we wish to expand into. The Global South is projected to be most of the world's population growth into the future. If we want to be a sustainable movement, we need to target that. But we haven't been nearly as effective as we could have been as evidenced by the subheading WMF reconsiders Africa approach. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 04:00, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

@Chess: Note that the current WMF board has 12 members, not 16. (16 is the theoretical maximum size under the current bylaws.)

I don't think the self-dealing argument holds water here, as it is the (s)elected members who appoint the appointees (so if self-dealing really were an issue, they could appoint like-minded friends ...).

You make a potentially valid point with regard to regional representation. Though historically, if you look at the chart here and the list of former members here, most appointees to date have in fact been from North America and Western Europe.

As for expertise in Asian, South American or African affairs, this could also be provided by an advisory board (the WMF used to have one).

All in all, I think the community is underrepresented in the WMF board. Andreas JN466 21:18, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

@Jayen466: The elected members would either need 100% support among themselves to execute a takeover from the current state, or manage to convince some of the already appointed board members (who don't really care that much about the Wikimedia movement) to collaborate with them.

I think that's a lot less realistic than the possibility that a 100% elected board could get >51% of the elected members to participate in a clique that can result in permanent reputational damage to the movement.

It's the same problem as student governments. Board of trustee elections are low turnout and don't have much glory. In meta:Wikimedia Foundation elections/2022, there were only 5922 votes. That's pretty low and a small group of devoted people could result in a board that isn't representative of the broader community. Also, the WMF isn't a membership organization. It holds elections, but there's no mechanism for forcing the election to be held in a certain way. If a bunch of cliquey people get elected, they can change the rules of the elections to enshrine their power permanently. That would be catastrophic. Appointed board members exercise a moderating force against changes such as that.

The WMF board as it stands now has done a pretty good job all things considered. They don't steal money and they prevent WMF execs from stealing money. They've also helped prevent major scandals (might be jinxing it but I haven't heard of a big sexual harassment case yet). There are a heck of a lot of non-profits that are worse. I think community representation at 50% is fine. Bureaucratic inertia is good because stability of the organization overseeing one of the most visited websites on the Internet is more valuable than a board that would be entirely elected by less than 10,000 people. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 01:19, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

Other ChatGPT indefs

At least one other user got blocked (in August) for using ChatGPT without verifying the invented information was correct, and then not responding to queries on their talk page about it. --PresN 14:06, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

I'll avoid gravedancing, but two other users were blocked after using ChatGPT to generate content which included fake references. MarioGom (talk) 16:34, 18 September 2023 (UTC)