Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2015-12-30

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The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2015-12-30. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Arbitration report: Second Arbitration Enforcement case concludes as another case is suspended (1,156 bytes · 💬)

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• In AE2, ArbCom limped to a 6-5 statement that the month-long block was reasonable. In one day, the committee of 15 will have the blocking admin on it and only 3 other members will have endorsed his action as reasonable. This isn't worth a mention? What about that the committee failed to reach consensus on any substantive action on Eric's restrictions (narrow to just GGTF to jump to a site ban)? I'm disappointed that the coverage of this case lacks much analysis of the case or its implications. EdChem (talk) 16:00, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

• It's a minor tragedy that Black Kite has retired while Kiril Lokshin, who's precipitate action triggered the whole mess, has been elected to ArbCom on a platform of "rapid drafts", which were the cause of so many problems last time he was on that august body. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 16:01, 30 December 2015 (UTC).
  

In the media: Wikipedia plagued by a "Basket of Deception" (1,429 bytes · 💬)

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• Strangely, the Press and Journal article says "You have reached your limit of 5 articles" even though I've never visited the site before. It was accessible using the Google cache though. They also didn't link to the images but you can find them at Commons:Category:Images from Braemar Castle Opencooper (talk) 23:10, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
• Ashley Feinberg's latest selection of the "Best Articles Wikipedia Deleted This Week" can be found here. -- llywrch (talk) 22:51, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
• Sports biographies are the most numerous biographies by profession on Wikipedia; it's no surprise that they will be a target for abuse. We are so inclusive that I, for one, have stopped bothered to even look at the sportspeople biographies in my new article feed; they are just too annoying to read and try to correlate with various sports notability hard-to-find rules. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 16:55, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

News and notes: WMF Board dismisses community-elected trustee (26,051 bytes · 💬)

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• Just when you think that we have exhausted the "WTF" moments, something like this happens. Deeply disappointed. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 15:40, 30 December 2015 (UTC).
  
• I'm surprised this article does not quote Doc James' comments on Jimbo's page in direct response to Jimbo's comments. Doc James was voted off the board and then asked to leave the meeting, it appears, and it is not surprising that he would make a public comment at that time - in fact, that this predictable action was not anticipated speaks to the judgement of those on the board. If the board wanted to discuss a joint communication strategy with Doc James then why was he asked to leave the meeting? If the board thought it could decide on a statement and strategy in private and then involve Doc James at a later stage then the members acted foolishly and should have realised that they were highly likely to be pre-empted. Jimbo's comments declaring that the problem is that Doc James disclosed his expulsion from the board strike me as playing the man rather than the ball, and his ongoing denials that his talk page comments are adding to the mystery and the speculation are wrong-headed. The Board needs to make a statement urgently and offer a clear and comprehensive comment; that this was not sorted out in the meting after Doc James was excluded seems strange. EdChem (talk) 15:49, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
• I don't think the resolution language quoted was specifically primarily intended to contemplate an early dismissal. I think it's more that at the time his term began, the Board did not know when Wikimania 2017 would be, and this is a more businesslike way of doing it. In the normal course of events, the Board would have passed a resolution appointing his elected replacement, as the end of the term approached.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:56, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
  • I read it the same way as Wehwalt. Presumably the resolution is written that way to get around the problem of Florida law preventing elected board members being removable by a Board vote. "If a director is elected by a class, chapter, or other organizational unit, or by region or other geographic grouping, the director may be removed only by the members of that class, chapter, unit, or grouping." Thus, if the Board appoints all its own members (including taking the results of "elections" as recommendations to the Board) then it can remove its own members at will. EdChem (talk) 16:06, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
    • So let's see that in the future all board members are elected rather than appointed. Carrite (talk) 17:15, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
      • A very good idea, but how do you propose to accomplish that? DGG ( talk ) 18:00, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
        • (commenting with no hats other than generic editor): The problem with that is that the WMF Board has to represent the interests of those who would not vote, namely the readers and those we have yet to reach. I would be in favor of a system wherein the majority of the board is elected, and it can appoint no more than a third of its members to represent specifically defined areas of interest (e.g., reaching the Global South, tech crap, etc.) plus the founder for 10 people (6, 3, and 1) ... that might be a more reasonable compromise. The chapters should not get to appoint 20% of the Board. Go Phightins! 18:10, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
          • That sounds more reasonable: 4 or 5 from the community plus 1 or 2 from the chapters for a total of 6 community representatives, and 3 appointees. And I would make the founder seat subject to periodic community confirmation as well ... Andreas JN466
    • The IRS Form 990, Part VI Governing Body and Management, question 6 (see 2013-2014 copy)asks whether the nonprofit has members and the answer is no. I'm guessing this is the same going back to inception. It allows the Foundation to avoid complex bookkeeping as well as other things like derivative suits and member's rights to inspect corporate records. As far as increasing the number of elected members, I can't imagine it happening. The last resort could be to threaten a fork or boycott to force the Foundation's hand. II | (t - c) 18:52, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
      • A less drastic but still consequential action would be a formal vote of no confidence. I see that in the offing here if an explanation continues to be delayed or it is unsatisfactory. I would see the suggestion for community-elected members (who will be community elected and can only be removed by a recall by the community, on its own initiative or by referendum) as a reasonable solution. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 19:18, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
        • Please put me on the official contact list if we do fork. I've been wanting that for years. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 06:50, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

• In fact, this "case" makes me highly curious what is behind this. The Banner talk 21:25, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

• Hmm, I may regret this, but I had a "Sherlock Holmes"-type train of thought regarding the mystery, and that's overriding my better judgment. Herewith, some pure and unadulterated speculation: The fact that the Board was unprepared for his action tells us it's not about malfeasance or any wrongdoing on his part. Because if that were the case, the Board would have had a prepared statement in advance, and be on guard for adverse action (note to the many commentators who think that the Board should have had a contingency plan here - well, people are human, and this would hardly be the first situation where a group didn't have a contingency plan ready for an outcome they didn't think would happen). Thus, it's likely the issue was something they wanted him to do, but that he thought was against principles. It also sounds like they expected him to go along, and were surprised by a refusal to resign, and forcing their hand (i.e. they'd need to remove him from the Board). He's not rich and not a wheeler-dealer, therefore this wouldn't be about financial disclosure or some sort of personal divestment. What does he feel passionately about, to the point of a showdown of a type "No, I WON'T (stop doing|agree to) that, and I'm not going to resign - and if you can't abide my actions, you must dismiss me!"? Unfortunately, I'm not Sherlock Holmes, and I don't have the requisite cultural knowledge to go further. But perhaps other people know more about what might lead to a dispute where the rest of the Board would think he'd likely agree, but he would be unwilling to do so. Once more, this is offered solely for the purposes of discussion, and I have no insider information or leaks regarding his reasons. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 22:17, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
  • That's as good a guess as any, IMHO.

    I'm not optimistic that anyone outside of the Board of Trustees will ever know why they booted Doc James. Back in 2007, Carolyn Doran was made chief operating officer, then fired for reasons the WMF still has yet to explain. And which I honestly feel were not sinister, just that Doran was not the person for the job that CEO of the WMF needs to be. (She was an administrative assistant in a job that involves managing & inspire volunteers. Not to say anyone since Doran has those abilities.) But instead of saying something along the lines of "She didn't have the skills needed" -- or even something more bland in a corporate vein -- all we've heard since has been silence. And why I expect only more silence. -- llywrch (talk) 00:08, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

    • Err ... no ... but in terms of human compassion, that's best left alone. Let dormant cans of worms stay closed. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 00:42, 31 December 2015 (UTC)
      • My last sentence referred to WMF explanations in general, not about Doran. That's a closed chapter. Sorry about the vagueness. -- llywrch (talk) 06:57, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

• Several commenters on Facebook were more outspoken, including statements such as...

• Why is this printed without attribution? Viriditas (talk) 02:19, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

• The Board should have had an explanation ready at the time the action was taken. An unelected majority bans off an elected minority member? It doesn't take a physicist to figure out the trajectory of that publicity rocket. We're two days on and the clock is still running... Not a word. Carrite (talk) 06:39, 31 December 2015 (UTC)
  • I'm hardly inclined to be an apologist for the WMF Board, but to make this point again: People sometimes don't plan for every possible outcome, especially ones they view as unlikely. It's really easy after the fact to say something like "How come you didn't see that coming and have a plan in place for it?". A honest reply, along the lines of "We didn't think it was going to happen, so didn't want to spend the time getting group agreement and legal clearances, for something that we thought would never be used", would be taken as an admission of failure. Now that the situation has blown up for the Board, they need to scramble to get everyone on-board, including legal. That's difficult to do over the holidays. Some Board members might even be having second thoughts about the whole affair (again, I don't know this, just saying it's possible). Once a rocket explodes, it can take a while to deal with the fragments. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 11:48, 31 December 2015 (UTC)
    • I've been wondering about that very matter: if someone hacked Seth Finkelstein's account on Wikipedia, or maybe he's just trolling us. <serious mode> To repeat myself -- hopefully clearly this time -- the WMF has both a strained relationship with the editing community & a deplorable record of handling PR with the same. I've been hoping that when Lila came aboard, this might change for the better, but it appears not to. As Pete Forsyth has pointed out elsewhere, the WMF has yet to acknowledge a petition signed by over a thousand contributors protesting Superprotect, although that feature has been removed. Before that was the whole Visual Editor issue, although the people involved with that have been let go -- apparently due to that fiasco. And so on. Even the official explanation doesn't explain anything: its message is more along the lines of "this is why we haven't told you anything". It's actions like this that make it increasingly difficult to assume good faith from the Foundation, & makes it difficult to want to volunteer labor & effort selflessly. -- llywrch (talk) 17:42, 31 December 2015 (UTC)
      • Seriously too, I tend to think that tactically one should minimize openings for opponents to complain (there's others views, e.g. they'll do it anyway, so don't bother trying to sound reasonable). Think a step ahead - what are they likely going to say? Almost all authorities stonewall and issue vague statements. If one makes an issue about the stonewall not being done fast enough, that just sets up a reply from them denouncing critics for unreasonable demands (again, some people wouldn't consider this a problem). With regard to "volunteer labor & effort selflessly", well, that's a key part of my critique of Wikipedia - "labor" has no power with respect to "management" (except the ultimate theoretical option of mass withdrawal, which is a pretty poor thing to rely upon). But me going on about that in this case would be a kind of grave-dancing, which I don't want to do here. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 12:07, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

So sorry to see this. Thank you for the prompt coverage. – SJ + 20:42, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

Board statement now posted

[1] Andreas JN466 13:28, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

• which surely cannot be enough, if the Board does not plan to develop into a Secret Service. --Magiers (talk) 13:52, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

• Key phrase: "expectations for Trustee conduct, responsibilities, and confidentiality.". That sounds like they wanted some agreement he balked at signing, but they didn't think he'd go to the wall over it. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 14:28, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

• Yep. I hope he balked at signing the non-disclosure agreement. If so, good for him. Int21h (talk) 15:17, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

@Int21h: The whole process around the non-disclosure and its implementation was a game-changer for me … sonewhere between organised chaos and a moving feast. It was enough for me to walk away from the process and the roles that I held. — billinghurst sDrewth 00:54, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

It does sound like a disagreement about transparency. However that is speculation. It may be something altogether more mundane, like the ability to attend board meetings.

Where this all went wrong, was the initial incorporation, which was to have been a members association. Legal difficulties of the state of incorporation made this "impossible".

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 16:02, 31 December 2015 (UTC).

If he refused to sign an NDA, why has he not spoken out now? The article mentions he is under 'an obligation' not to speak, but it doesn't say whether a legal or moral obligation. If the former, he must have signed something. If the latter, why a moral obligation, given the nature of the Movement, which assumes a moral obligation to make the truth known. It's perplexing. Peter Damian (talk) 11:27, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

It's possible that he previously signed something relevant, but now refused to sign something he thought went much too far. Thus he might be legally constrained by an original acceptable agreement not to discuss in public the dispute over a further unacceptable (to him) agreement. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 12:07, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

It's a possible explanation, to be sure. But the other thing against it is everything Jimmy said, like wanting him to resign quietly, rather than raising a cloud in public, possible damage to Heilman's reputation, failure to uphold the values of the community etc etc. This suggests some action of Heilman that was so terrible or inappropriate that resignation was seen as the only option. But then again, if that was obviously so, why did Heilman choose to resign? Peter Damian (talk) 12:16, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

I wouldn't say it suggests some action by Heilman (beyond not agreeing and not resigning quietly). Wales may simple mean that in his view, by forcing the issue as Heilman did, he (Heilman) showed very poor judgment, which would cause other organizations or managers with similar power, not to give him further positions of responsibility. It's a matter of don't-rock-the-boat, if you know that expression. My take is that as a businessman-type, Wales quite often criticizes people for what might be termed lack of institutional loyalty or what he seems to regard as a kind of insubordination. That's a common mindset. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 12:59, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Ah right, so Wales means something like lack of professional judgment, rather than 'integrity' or suchlike. Could be. We shall have to see. Peter Damian (talk) 13:47, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

• This is an unfortunate situation. The Board and community always has high hopes for all new trustees, so having it come to this outcome for whatever reason is sad. I also don't have any special information about the situation, but I wanted to point out that board member expectations are spelled out in the Board Handbook, if people are unaware of it: legal duties and standard of conduct -- phoebe / (talk to me) 21:48, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Meetings

Note for the (pedantic) record, the Signpost quoted me about meetings, but I got one thing wrong -- either the chair, the vice-chair or any two trustees can call a special meeting. CF the bylaws. Notice procedures for meetings are also spelled out in the Board Handbook. This was not a misquote -- I was traveling when the Signpost reached out so I gave the procedure from memory and didn't double check the bylaws. best, -- phoebe / (talk to me) 21:37, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification, Phoebe. I updated the article to reflect that change. Go Phightins! 01:47, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Update

For those of you who do not read the Wikimedia-l list, James Heilman has released a statement about his termination from the Board. IMHO, it provides more information on this incident. -- llywrch (talk) 05:41, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

• Something occurred behind closed doors, involving ten people. To my best knowledge, four of them have published some statements. These statements, from all sides, were written in the 'transparency style of writing', resulting into a stack of great words, organized into weasel sentences, augmented with some assertions about what has not occurred. It was not the NSA, it was not an attack from the awakened mummies, and so on. From such a lack of sources, an army of keyboards has generated a storm of comments (160, as of now, for the sole thread Announcement about changes to the Board). What do we learn from these comments? That the commenters have not the smallest piece of knowledge about the events, but cannot refrain themselves from publishing something. After all, the fiduciary duty of a drama board is to provide dramas. Pldx1 (talk) 10:00, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

• My comments on the mailing list have unfortunately not been made out of ignorance. Or rather - I am ignorant of the specifics of Florida-specific NPO governance law (where WMF is incorporated,) but have spent more hours than I would care to remember being trained in California and federal NPO governance laws and regulations, as well as just practices. Besides the general lack of awareness with which the affair has so far been conducted of the current mood, desires etc of the Wikimedia movement, a member of the audit subcommittee mentioned (and someone else in a place to know privately corroborated when I asked) that James had been for a number of months denied access to at least certain financial documents to which other trustees had been given access - and that's both definitely not inline with best practices, and if WMF was incorporated in California, is an action that in at least some situations could actually literally lead to personal liability for the trustees. That allegation alone means that external review of this situation by a knowedgeable NPO governance consulting group is almost certainly desirable (unless James corrects that and states that he had full access to all documents he desired that another trustee would have had access to, up until the minute he was removed from the board.)

It's also atypical - and not a great sign, imo - that one of the BoT's complaints about James' is that he communicated directly with staff, bypassing management. As has been mentioned elsewhere in various places (a) communication of this nature is NOT unusual in the 24 months after an organization has acquired new management - nor is it necessarily any reflection on that management, the trustees would simply be remiss in their duties if they avoided doing so, (b) if at any time the communication was initiated by staff rather than by James', it is true that in most cases in most organizations the appropriate response would've been to redirect the communication to the employees' chain of command, but if the communication concerned the employees' chain of management, depending on the nature and level of it, James looking in to it directly would oftentimes be appropriate, (c) with a well-respected trustee also being a well-respected editor in a movement like ours, it's not at all unusual that James would be in more frequent communication with many staff members than the other trustees would, and (d) at any point if in his viewpoint he would make a more informed decision about an issue before the board by directly communicating with a staff member, then it was absolutely his pregorative to do so, especially if he was not attempting to micromanage people, to speak for or undermine Lila, or to speak for the BoT as a whole (and there are at least two staff members on that thread making public statements that in all of their communications with him he both was not trying to micromanage them and made it 100% clear that he was speaking for himself alone. User:Kevin Gorman | ^{talk page} 21:21, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

• Indeed! There are so many comments, on the mailing list or anywhere else, that are unfortunately not been made out of knowledge. I don't criticize the inventivity of your comments, but I don't see any finding of facts beyond what was already known, i.e. the doors were closed, and so are the ten mouths. Pldx1 (talk) 22:37, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

• Now, we have meta:Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/James_Heilman_removal_FAQ. At least, this document contains some assertions that are sufficiently precise and sharply worded to be able of being either true or false. Pldx1 (talk) 11:24, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for posting this link Pldx1. The question in my mind is: What is to prevent the Board from continuously removing other community-elected members? I understand the Board's point of view concerning its own privacy and confidentiality concerns, but knowing also of James's ideas, I think the Board as a whole is moving in the wrong direction. Like myself, I can see many people begin to have doubts about how the Board is run, and whether they truly represent those of us who participate in Wikimedia projects. - kosboot (talk) 12:50, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

James' 2 Jan 2016 email (archive) looks quite clear to me in explaining the core reason why he was removed: the unelected members of the Politburo Board were upset about him pushing for more transparency and worried that he might pressure the Board about improving staff conditions or relations with staff. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. James worded this more carefully, of course. The Vanguard of the people doesn't want the people to know too much. Boud (talk) 13:02, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

Traffic report: The Force we expected (3,200 bytes · 💬)

Gotta say, using that image for Martin Shkreli was absolutely unnecessary. He may be sleaze but the photo in his entry was totally uncalled for. GamerPro64 19:05, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't get it either. I took it out. — Earwig ^talk 20:04, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Earwig. I was going to complain as well. I went ahead and purged the cache for the single-page edition. Let's remind everyone involved in Signpost creation that the spirit (and possibly even the letter) of WP:BLP applies to non-article-spaces including the Signpost. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 20:35, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Did the Signpost skip a week?— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 21:42, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

• i think some are overreacting to the image, but so be it. Controversial subjects will always cause controversy unless we simply call them "popular subjects". I believe I was fair to the subject, and far fairer than the mainstream press coverage of respected outlets. Some will inevitably disagree and I can respect that..--Milowent • ^hasspoken 06:24, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

  @Milowent: I suppose that if there had been a reference to a reliable source comparing him to the devil, I wouldn't have had as big an issue. If there had been an explicit quote or paraphrase from that source (e.g. "BIGNAMENEWSOUTLET called PERSON 'Satan incarnate'") then I would have at least checked the reference before complaining and, in rare cases (I can't think of any right now), might overtly support using such an image for a living person. Of course, if the image was used in a non-disparaging way, such as "PERSON won a Tony Award for his on-stage role of Satan in the new version of Faust" then there's not a BLP issue at all. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 21:47, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Since I think of Satan as a made-up fantasy, I probably didn't adequately consider how some would look at it, and that's my fault. But look at this headline that greeted me today! Martin Shkreli: the worst person of 2015.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 13:56, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Year in review: The top ten Wikipedia stories of 2015 (11,223 bytes · 💬)

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• Thanks for that interesting article. It is clear that "https everywhere" was not thought out fully. Plus ça change... All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 15:50, 30 December 2015 (UTC).
  

• Yes, I agree with Rich. -- llywrch (talk) 00:21, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

• Facepalm Someone scorched earth to make a stupid joke. That's just not needed. GamerPro64 16:56, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

• There wasn't much to choose from on Wikimedia Commons. My first choice would have been an image of Vivian James. Gamaliel (talk) 23:56, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

• No I understand. Not that many people would get who Vivian James is anyway. GamerPro64 00:28, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

• Hmm, I disagree that it's anywhere near that simple. Plainly, "HTTPS everywhere" is a cost/benefit analysis. Given that global surveillance has been revealed to be worse than even the worst fears of privacy campaigners, there's a strong benefit for users in providing HTTPS by default — enough that WMF is suing the NSA over it, after all. If the cost of that is that Chinese users can't access Wikipedia through the Great Firewall (which almost all Chinese Internet users know how to evade in any case), there's certainly a case to be made that the cost/benefit analysis pays off. Reasonable people may disagree, of course :o) — OwenBlacker (Talk) 17:43, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
• Thanks for the overview! Ziko (talk) 19:02, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
• Nerd alert: "HTTPS encryption protocol" is not really correct. HTTPS isn't an "encryption protocol"; it's just encrypted HTTP. "Encryption protocol" would, I suppose, refer to a cryptosystem itself, though the phrase "encryption protocol" is not widely used in the relevant fields; more precise terms are preferred. --71.119.131.184 (talk) 20:12, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
• I spent a fortnight in China in 2015 writing up the 2015 Women's U25 Wheelchair Basketball World Championship, and Wikipedia is not blocked. I have twelve articles to prove it! Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:11, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

  Don't quote me on this, but I vaguely remember having read somewhere that hotels and similar places in China that are frequented by foreigners sometimes have unblocked Internet connections. --71.119.131.184 (talk) 01:28, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

  That's also what I heard, which makes this intel more credible. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 08:30, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

• I haven't seen evidence that any blocking was precipitated by the switch to HTTPS-only. Reports at the time indicated that all HTTP access for the Chinese-language version of Wikipedia was already blocked.[2][3][4] The English-language version does seem to usually be unblocked. Perhaps this shouldn't be so surprising. —Emufarmers^(T/C) 04:26, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

An excellent overview! One detail is slightly askew: the Gamergate attack on Wikipedia may in fact date back to the origin of Gamergate itself. Gamergate’s first notable action was its effort to terrorize Zoë Quinn, and while many threats in the early days were broadcast on Twitter using the #Gamergate hashtag, the first one Quinn saw was actually an edit, since revdel’d, to the info box on her Wikipedia bio. The analogy between Gamergate and Anonymous is novel and intriguing, though I would point out that Gamergate targets have predominately been private individuals where Anonymous primarily has targeted corporations and government agencies. MarkBernstein (talk) 21:40, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

• ...Wikipedia’s ever-dwindling editor base—a decline perhaps also attributable to the adoption of mobile devices...

• Please, for the love of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, stop repeating this unsubstantiated nonsense. Like Cullen and hundreds of others, I've been editing from mobile for a decade now, first with HTC, then with an iPod Touch, and now on IPhone. I've written GA articles, reviewed many more, and patrolled recent changes while on the run. This quaint notion that mobile has led to some kind of decline in editing is not just absurd, it demonstrates that old habits die hard. Viriditas (talk) 02:43, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

• Thank you, Viriditas, for your comment. I, too, have made tens of thousands of edits, written and expanded many articles, helped about a thousand newbies at the Teahouse, all on Android smart phones. I have even written an essay, Smartphone editing on this subject. Two billion sophisticated Android smart phones have been sold in 2014 and 2015. We should be encouraging and supporting and enabling mobile device editing, instead of moaning that it is way too hard. It isn't. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 03:33, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

• I've just within the past few weeks seen, several times, highly experienced editors state they didn't do some task because they were on a mobile device at the time, so there evidently are things that are not as easy to do on mobile devices as there are on "regular" PCs. Certainly you can probably do pretty much anything if you devote enough time and effort to it, but if the aforementioned people have difficulty with something I can't imagine your average drive-by editor will bother with it. And sure, I don't think most of the people who bring up mobile as an issue are in despair that the project is doomed because of it; they just want to remind people to keep mobile editing in mind, and maybe think more resources ought to be devoted to improving mobile editing. --71.119.131.184 (talk) 07:44, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

• The only task that is more difficult for me on my phone is the act of research on Gbooks. Otherwise, PDFs and other indices work fine. And I think this really needs to be said: both desktop and mobile have terrible editing interfaces. There are hundreds of different things we can do, but unfortunately the community here is resistant to change and is very narrow in their approach. I've all but limited my editing because I just can't stand this place anymore. Viriditas (talk) 21:56, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

• Approximately 18 months since Lila Tretikov became executive director, the WMF has experienced almost 100% turnover.

  I'm not sure how you arrived at this particular figure. I'm looking at the staff page and I see dozens of names that I recognize as having been there for years. There's certainly been turnover, and maybe more than usual, but I don't think it's fair to round to the nearest 50%. —Emufarmers^(T/C) 04:42, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

  • You've got the wrong definition of turnover. See Turnover (employment)#Calculation. Bgwhite (talk) 10:18, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

    Okay, you're right, I was being sloppy. A quick count of "{{staff member"s on the staff page indicates there were about 200 employees 18 months ago and about 280 today. So 100% turnover would be about 240 employees leaving during that time, right? That would certainly be surprising. —Emufarmers^(T/C) 02:52, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

• I take strong resentment to how the GG situation is described. There have been many other editors, such as myself, that have been trying to make the article a neutral account of the situation struggling against both the mass throwaway accounts trying to swing it towards a pro GG stance (including attempts to include inappropriate BLP, etc as identified) and editors that have a strong anti GG opinion that were not behaving in a cooperative manner when facets of neutrality were brought up for discussion (the reason those editors were sanctioned by the decision). The Arbcom case put those actions of neutral editors too in the spotlight as it has been shown that both sides of GG take anyone that does not conform to their view as the opponent, which is not always true. What is apparerent, not just from GG or gender debates or the like is that current Wikipedia policies do not work well in ongoing controversies in the current mainstream media market that is competng for eyeballs from bloggers and social media. Many Arbcom cases over the past two years boil down to situations of editors working to keep neutral stances for WP articles fighting against both lopsided coverage of ongoing controversies, and other editors strongly convicted to one side or the other not working in cooperation. I have been thinking for the lasdt few months of how WP needs to clarify (not change) policies to make sure there are clear routes to resolve debates on ongoing controversies as to avoid what we are seeing in several arenas presently, which I plan to propose soon. --MASEM (t) 12:32, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

• To elucidate the matter of employee turnover (#9), have a look at the Glassdoor reviews of the Wikimedia Foundation. Things there are worse inside than they look from the outside. Something needs fixing there. -- llywrch (talk) 23:56, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
  • It couldn't be any worse than the moronic idiocy on Wikipedia. Their employees are drawn from the Wikipedia community, so you've got a problem right off the bat that can never be fixed. Viriditas (talk) 01:30, 2 January 2016 (UTC)