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Help Project newsletter : Issue 5

The Help Project Newsletter Issue V - January 2013

Project news summary Help:Contents and Wikipedia:Contact us have seen a major revamp. Page statistics were updated. Alerts are now available for discussions related to Help Project pages Many more Help Project pages now have the Article Feedback Tool (v5) enabled. GettingStarted is an experimental feature to guide new users with their first edits.

From the editor Hello again from the Help Project! In the last newsletter (which was quite a while ago sorry!) I talked about my fellowship and the plans for improving the main portal page, Help:Contents. Well I'm sad to say that my fellowship is now over, but very happy to say that the proposed improvements to that page have been completed and implemented. Do check it out if you haven't already. Another important and frequently used help page, Wikipedia:Contact us, has also seen a significant revamp. You may recognise the design inspiration from the new tutorial pages. In project news, we now have a subscription to the "article alerts" service. Any deletion nominations, move discussions, or requests for comments on pages within the Help Project's scope will now show up at Wikipedia:Help Project/Article alerts. So that's definitely a page which project members might want to watch. Any comments or suggestions for future issues are welcome at Wikipedia:Help Project/Newsletter. If you don't wish to receive this newsletter on your talk page in future then just edit the participants page and add "no newsletter" next to your name. -- the wub "?!" 23:34, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

The Tea Leaf - Issue Seven (special Birthday recap)

A celebratory cupcake from the Teahouse Birthday Badge

It's been a full year since the Teahouse opened, and as we're reflecting on what's been accomplished, we wanted to celebrate with you.

Teahouse guests and hosts are sharing their stories in a new blog post about the project.

1 year statistics for Teahouse visitors compared to invited non-visitors from the pilot:

Metric	Control group	Teahouse group	Contrast
Average retention (weeks with at least 1 edit)	5.02 weeks	8.57 weeks	1.7x retention
Average number of articles edited	58.7 articles	116.9 edits	2.0x articles edited
Average talk page edits	36.5 edits	85.6 edits	2.4x talk page edits
Average article space edits	129.6 edits	360.4 edits	2.8x article edits
Average total edits (all namespaces)	182.1 edits	532.4 edits	2.9x total edits

Over the past year almost 2000 questions have been asked and answered, 669 editors have introduced themselves, 1670 guests have been served, 867 experienced Wikipedians have participated in the project, and 137 have served as hosts. Read more project analysis in our CSCW 2013 paper

Last month January was our most active month so far! 78 profiles were created, 46 active hosts answered 263 questions, and 11 new hosts joined the project.

Come by the Teahouse to share a cup of tea and enjoy a Birthday Cupcake! Happy Birthday to the Teahouse and thank you for a year's worth of interest and support :-)

-- Ocaasi and the rest of the Teahouse Team 20:45, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

You are receiving The Tea Leaf after expressing interest or participating in the Teahouse! To add or remove yourself for receiving future newsletters, please update the list here

Statistics can be manipulated

About statistics related to "Number of edits per..." etc. It seems to me that this kind of stat may have little significance in cases where churlish/childish/puerile or just lazy editors may simply edit their own sandboxes etc., over and over again, just to increase their total number of edits for whatever reason. Jodosma (talk) 21:34, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

That's true of course, statistics can be manipulated, but these stats are reasonable because both teahouse visitors and non-visitors probably do those things in about equal amount. More importantly, I agree that measuring edit quality is far more important than mere edit counts, which is why we measure article space edits specifically. Those tend to be constructive the longer one lasts here, which Teahouse hosts do! Please let me know if you have more questions and you can direct any technical queries to User:Jtmorgan. Cheers, Ocaasi ^{t | c} 21:36, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

The Teahouse Turns One!

It's been an exciting year for the Teahouse and you were a part of it. Thanks so much for visiting, asking questions, sharing answers, being friendly and helpful, and just keeping Teahouse an awesome place. You can read more about the impact we're having and the reflections of other guests and hosts like you. Please come by the Teahouse to celebrate with us, and enjoy this sparkly cupcake badge as our way of saying thank you. And, Happy Birthday!

	Teahouse First Birthday Badge
	Awarded to everyone who participated in the Wikipedia Teahouse during its first year! To celebrate the many hosts and guests we've met and the nearly 2000 questions asked and answered during this excellent first year, we're giving out this tasty cupcake badge. Earn more badges at: Teahouse Badges

--Ocaasi and the rest of the Teahouse Team 22:27, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

You are a Teahouse Founder!

From the first months, through its first birthday, you have stuck with the Teahouse, nurtured its community, learned and helped, shared and improved. Simply put, the Teahouse would not be what it is without you. Stick around, because we need your lovely attitudes, sincere dedication, sharp minds, crafty design, caring reform, technical wits, and good humor. Display this delicious badge with honor, for you are a Teahouse Founder.

Teahouse Founders Birthday Badge

Awarded to editors who participated in the Wikipedia Teahouse during its first months and are still participating a year later. To celebrate the editors who have been with Teahouse from the beginning through its first year, we've made you this extra special birthday badge! Teahouse continues to be awesome because you are still here all these months later, so thank you. You are the Foundation of this awesome project. Earn more badges at: Teahouse Badges

With the utmost cheer and appreciation,

--Ocaasi and the rest of the Teahouse Team 23:00, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 25 February 2013

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 07:35, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Amazing!

	Teahouse Barnstar
	Hey Ocaasi! Your work at the Wikipedia Teahouse is really amazing! I hereby award you this Barnstar for your tireless efforts and also for you really deserve it! Thanks again and keep it up my bro! Thanks again. ;) Mediran (t • c) 09:05, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Thank you! It's really nice to hear that--as much as I love giving other folks rewards and acknowledgements, I still enjoy a little wikilove myself. Teahouse is too important to ignore and I can't resist touting a good thing when I see it. Thanks again! Ocaasi ^{t | c} 16:45, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Aesthetic Realism

Hi Ocaasi,

Thank you for contacting me on this issue. My main reason for rephrasing the hatnote was to remove the extraneous links; according to Wikipedia guidelines, only Realism (arts) is an appropriate link for a hatnote on the Aesthetic Realism article. My hatnote was not intended to be a commentary on Aesthetic Realism in any way. If your concern is with respect to how the subject of the Realism (arts) article is to be summarized in the hatnote, I would be glad to rephrase. How about "the attempt to represent subject matter while avoiding artistic conventions"?

Neelix (talk) 17:55, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi Ocaasi,

My concern with the link to Aesthetics is that aesthetics is never called "aesthetic realism"; no one is going to type "Aesthetic realism" into the search bar hoping to find the Aesthetics article. This type of hatnote (or disambiguation page) link is called a partial title match and is prohibited in the guidelines. My concern with the Realism link is that Realism is a disambiguation page and only one entry on that disambiguation page could be referred to as "aesthetic realism": Realism (arts). Do you disagree with either of these points?

Neelix (talk) 18:42, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi Ocaasi,

Based on the talk page discussion to which you link, it looks as though we agree on two of the uses of the term "aesthetic realism" (one discussed on the Aesthetic Realism article and the other discussed on the Realism (arts) article). If I understand your position correctly, there is only one other use of the term, and that is what you describe as the "analytical philosophy that properties of objects exist apart from subjective interpretations". That definition describes the content of the Philosophical realism article really well, but that article limits itself to ontology and does not deal with aesthetics. One of the sources you quote in that discussion defines "aesthetic realism" as the "claim that there are mind-independent aesthetic facts". How would you feel about adding an "Aesthetics" section to the Philosophical realism article centered around this sourced definition and then create a redirect to that section as Aesthetic realism (metaphysics)? Then, we could create a disambiguation page linked from a hatnote at Aesthetic Realism that listed both Realism (arts) and Aesthetic realism (metaphysics).

Neelix (talk) 02:28, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi Ocaasi,

If you have no objections, I'll pursue the course of action I outline above.

Neelix (talk) 19:44, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks!

Thanks for the great question badge! I plan to join you guys for a cup of tea everytime I feel lost or unsure while editing haha. Also your user page is awesome. Keep up the great work! CityMorgue (talk) 19:38, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 04 March 2013

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• EdwardsBot (talk) 23:12, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

The moment you've been waiting for...

Research status on manual and manipulative therapy. Hi Ocaasi! I've asked you and several other editors I trust to take a peek here [1]. It's a revised update on the effectiveness and safety of manipulative therapy. You can definitely help with language issues or potential bias. Would love to hear from you. Regards, DVMt (talk) 04:05, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Draft COI RFC

I think that the draft is fair, except I would say that it is inaccurate to suggest that the 2012 RFC had any impact on current policy beyond failing to come to any consensus, leaving the prior policy and guidelines in place.

As for useful, I have disabused myself of any notion that consensus can be reached on COI policy because there are too many competing agendas out there and too many editors and administrators whose agenda appears to be simply assuring that no consensus is reached.

Thanks for soliciting my input. Fladrif (talk) 19:02, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. I'll tweak the introduction accordingly. Ocaasi ^{t | c} 19:04, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Questions

Ocaasi, could you clarify what your interest is in encouraging paid advocates to edit? I've never been able to understand why you spend so much time on it, and how you see it as helping Wikipedia (as opposed to helping the advocates or those they represent). Any clarification would be much appreciated. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:06, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't totally accept the premise that I'm encouraging paid advocates to edit. I recognize that many already do edit and I prefer they do it transparently and well than secretly and not well. I view this approach as fundamentally pragmatic, as I don't believe we have a perfect choice. Instead I'm seeking to clarify community consensus about a contentious issue through a neutrally worded rfc about the subset of financial conflicts of interest that we've been discussing. A not insubstantial number of Wikipedians maintain that we should judge edits not editors and I want to know whether they believe that still holds for financial conflicts of interest. As I've been doing for several years now, I'm trying to establish best practices and current consensus as policy, so that we can do a better job in this admittedly complex and imperfect arena. Ocaasi ^{t | c} 19:14, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't just mean this latest RfC proposal, but in general. You certainly have encouraged paid advocates to edit affected articles directly. I'm curious as to how to you came to be interested in this, and how you see paid advocacy as benefiting Wikipedia. That is, how would Wikipedia and its readers (not the editors or the companies) be helped by your proposals? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:19, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry Slim, I don't accept that as correct. I don't encourage editors with a direct financial or ethical conflict of interest to edit live articles directly. In fact I often warn them how fraught this is, how the community has great concerns about it even if it's not explicitly forbidden, how difficult neutrality is for all of us and even moreso for them, how best practice is to stick to the talk page with full disclosure, etc. That's what I tell people when I talk to them. The only caveat to that, was a proposed exception in WP:COI+ that if we as a community did not respond in a reasonable amount of time, that it could under limited and regulated conditions be acceptable to edit directly. In response to your concerns I removed that exception from the proposal as it was just too threatening and I wanted to start from where we have common ground. Ocaasi ^{t | c} 19:25, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

For reference, please see my public talk: Learning to Speak in Wikipedia's Language (slides) or the (full text). You could also ask DGG or Herostratus, with whom I recently participated in a panel about this topic. Ocaasi ^{t | c} 19:32, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

You wrote a proposal that paid advocates be allowed to edit articles directly, you work with them, you've joined their Facebook group or whatever it is, you've written enthusiastically about paid advocacy for the Signpost, you've written several forks of the COI guideline to make it sound acceptable, you spend a lot of your time on WP, if not most, advocating for it, and you've asked the Foundation for a grant to study it. It's hard to see how you could be more in favour of it. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 18:00, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

The proposal required disclosure and only suggested direct editing after a month of escalation with no response if double-notification was left (that piece is removed). I joined a Facebook group because I want to understand their concerns. I don't "work with" these people, I talk to them. The Signpost interview series involved folks like Pete Forsyth, OrangeMike, and Jimbo Wales in addition to Silver Seren and Phil Gomes (did you read them all?), I wrote the most extensive and practically applicable how-to guideline for COI editors after working with them in various irc, otrs, and on-wikipedia channels dealing with their incompetence and frustration for years, I spend the majority of my time on WP working on Teahouse, Wikipedia Library, and other projects, and the COI grant proposal was withdrawn a day after it went up because I realized folks like you would find it too threatening.

Also, are you aware that WMDE just funded an $81,000 grant to study the issue of paid editing. Ocaasi ^{t | c} 20:52, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

t | c 20:46, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

How are Wikipedia's readers served by the corporate communications officer for a pharmaceutical company writing Wikipedia's articles about that company's drugs? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:56, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Well that depends on their contributions. If they correct errors, that could be useful, or if they provide sources that are appropriate but lacking. I don't advise pharma folks to go around editing the articles on their own medications. But if they propose suggestions on talk pages and contribute neutral, well-written content, then it gives us the opportunity to evaluate whether or not it's in fact an improvement and a reflection of the best available secondary literature on the medications. Great care is needed in the selection and presentation of sources, of course, as many individual primary studies or even single meta-analyses would not convey a full view of the current literature. So, again, it depends on the caliber of the contributions and how they align with our policies. I generally point those editors to WP:MEDRS and tell them to exercise great care and deference in how they approach our community. So, in short, if a corporate communicator presents a draft which is better sourced, more informative, and as or more neutral than the current version, then it gives us the opportunity to improve the article. That's the best case scenario. Typically an obvious attempt to whitewash an article is rebuffed and results in backlash, so I advise folks not to go down that path. Then there are gray area questions, such as how much coverage to give to one aspect of the article or another, and those as always need editorial discretion to get right. Ocaasi ^{t | c} 22:15, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Once again, you raise a straw man. No one has ever objected to paid advocates on talk pages. My question is how are our readers helped by having the company write articles about its own drugs. To imagine that they would only provide sources and correct obvious errors if allowed to edit directly is naive in the extreme. Given the amount of whitewashing that occurs with drug trials and research papers, and given the sometimes billions of dollars at stake, do you really believe they would respect a Wikipedia article, and do nothing to skew it in their favour? And how would you, Ocaasi, judge their edits? How would our readers know that the article was the result of corporate editing, with Wikipedia's blessing? The readers donate money to the Foundation precisely to keep Wikipedia free of this kind of corporate input, so you are cheating the readers editorially and financially.

I'd appreciate seeing an example of you rebuffing an attempt to whitewash (or pointing them in the direction of MEDRS), and an example of a successful relationship between yourself and a company, that is, one that resulted in a good article. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 22:34, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

It's not a straw man, it's what I actually advise. COI+ simply raised the idea that as a community we should consider our responsibility to respond to proposals and edit requests. Otherwise I do tell editors to stick to the talk page unless there's particularly uncontroversial errors. Also, I don't advise PR folks at actual articles, so I can't point you to an example of my work where I rebuffed folks, though I see it happen at other articles where COI is poorly handled. I simply tell people about our policies and best practices. I know you think there's some nefarious agenda here, Slim, but I think that's bordering on conspiracy. And our readers donate money to keep Wikipedia neutral, not to "keep out corporations". We're not an "anti-corporations" encyclopedia, as we're not an anti-anything encyclopedia (excluding WP:NOT etc.). So, I think we simply disagree about the best approach to achieve neutrality and to manage editors who have conflict of interest... I'm not dancing around inviting PR folks to go around editing to improve their bottom line, far from it. But I'm recognizing that these forces exist and we must contend with them. We can't just pretend that these people aren't already at work here in secret. And if we don't provide guidance, we will only get more of the horrendous scandals which I documented at length in Conflict of interest editing on Wikipedia, which you'll note is in no way a hagiography of paid advocates--quite the opposite, it's a minefield of fuck-ups. So, you're not wrong, but you're just not taking into account the full scope of my efforts here, Slim. Ocaasi ^{t | c} 23:45, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

The readers donate money to keep corporate money away from the editorial side of Wikipedia, because corporate involvement in articles will kill neutrality; not only neutrality, it will kill WP, because volunteers will not work alongside paid advocates, not in the long run. The more we have of the latter, the fewer we will attract and retain of the former.

I can't be familiar with the scope of your efforts when a lot of it is offwiki. As you've twice requested a grant from the Wikipedia Foundation, and you're creating POV forks of the guideline, and RfCs, would you mind writing up somewhere a list of the companies you've advised, so that we can check the outcome of that advice? Transparency and full disclosure would be very helpful here, give the impact you're seeking to have. If I've gained the wrong impression of your efforts, I'll be very happy to apologize. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:29, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

The question of whether volunteers will work alongside corporate representatives is an open one. Several editors including myself,have taken on the responsibility of assisting such folks in following best practices. Check out WikiProject Cooperation and see what happens at the WP:PAIDHELP board. You keep using the term POV fork, but WP:PSCOI is pretty much a standard guide now, and the RfCs I've drafted address the very issues we've been debating...why not clarify consensus about them? And you keep viewing this as some grand deceptive strategy but my work has been quite transparent and I believe the community has been generally receptive to it. I gave the talk linked above to the Public Relations Society of America, and carefully, voluntarily advised editors from Monitor Group, Occidental Petroleum, and the U.S. Congress (NDAA_2012) to make sure they followed best practices. Sometimes I'll be asked to walk people through our polices in these delicate instances. OTRS requests are private, so I can't disclose them of course, but if you have OTRS access you could review my tickets. I assisted a Fellow at Eli Lilly who wants to improve regional coverage of disease management; I gave a panel talk at social media week in nyc (you can search twitter for #smwwiki to get people's summaries); and I've advised an Eli Lilly social media representative to be very careful about working on any articles their companies manage. I'm in occasional contact with Public Relations Society of America and folks at Edelman about their views, which was primarily related to a COI certification idea which I've mentioned to you. Otherwise, that's about it. Slim, I've never worked in PR or made a dollar from Wikipedia. Believe it or not, it's the truth. This information is all on my userpage btw (except for the recent events which I need to add), and it has been there for many months. Do more research before you jump to conclusions. Ocaasi ^{t | c} 01:08, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Also, remember some context and history here. When Bell Pottinger had their massive screw-up, Jimmy Wales went and gave them a lecture. He talked to and with them about how to approach our community. The outreach I do is about how to avoid a massive backlash that harms them and us. I try to find ways to work together with people, Slim, as I've tried with you. You might view that as 'aiding the enemy', but I think it's just pragmatic. We can disagree on that point, it's ok. Communities need people who play defense and who try for diplomacy, but we're on the same team I believe. And for context, I think I spend about 10-20% percent of my Wikipedia time working on this issue, so it's not really my first priority, although I do find it to be an interesting topic. Cheers, Ocaasi ^{t | c} 01:18, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the replies. How do the corporate OTRS requests that you handle work? If a company requests your input via OTRS, do you help out yourself, or do you put them in touch with e.g. Rangoon11 and the other editors that you work with? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 16:02, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Typically for OTRS requests I first investigate the claims myself and see if it's something minor I can handle. If it involves anything complex or controversial I'll look for an active, non-POV pushing editor at the article's talk page/history whom I respect to put the person in touch with. At BP that person was Rangoon11; at NDAA 2012 that person was Darouet. Before making those connections I usually give a thorough introduction about our policies by email, or sometimes by phone. That typically involves a review of the guidance at WP:COI and WP:PSCOI. At that point I'm pretty much out of the picture and the discussions carry on through the normal consensus process of presenting drafts, discussing sources, etc. Sometimes I'll be contacted again if discussion has died down or there is resistance to a proposal; at that point I might try to ping another editor, direct them to a noticeboard, or explain a policy issue that is at hand. Worth mentioning that anyone can tackle any OTRS ticket permission they have access to, and OTRS members are strictly volunteers with no special powers. In that sense I'm more of a community liason and a policy consultant than anything else.

One of the disparities in our backgrounds Slim, is I believe, that you primarily work on articles; meanwhile, I have spent hundreds of hours on irc, AfC, OTRS, and off-wiki helping new editors understand our policies. I see rampant misunderstanding and confusion all the time and do my best to walk people through it. In the subset of those editors who are corporate representatives, I've tried to craft useful guidance that doesn't exclude them from our processes but instead guides them towards transparency and neutral contributions that we can actually benefit from as a community. You are free to think that is the wrong approach, but I'd prefer you not see it as reckless or deceptive.

In instances where I've sought out PR folks myself, it's been to ask them a pretty simple question: if Wikipedia required you to disclose your COI and propose drafts on the talk page, would you follow that guidance as a long as you could get a response to your requests? Ocaasi ^{t | c} 17:17, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Revisions

Hi Ocaasi. I tried to trim down the number of questions, because I find when there is more than one topic, the discussion tends to get watered down and the questions won't get answered. Respondents will defer to make general comments instead. Also, some of the questions wouldn't result in any specific changes to WP:COI, while the remaining I feel the answers to each could result in specific changes.

The anecdote I would make is that when my dog was very old, the vet always wanted to run all these tests to "figure something out" but I would ask what decision we would make on the basis of the test, and the answer was usually that we would do the same thing no matter the outcome. The answer to each question should result in a decision of some kind regarding the content of WP:COI.

I noticed the one place we reverted each other (in a metaphorical sense) was that you placed question 3 from the PR person's perspective, rather than from the volunteers'. I think one shortcoming of WP:COI is that it deals exclusively with advice to the COI editor and not to volunteers. Inexperienced volunteers often have no idea how to respond. CorporateM (Talk) 23:03, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Actually, isn't question 3 the same as question 1? Because it has to do with direct-editing and some of the options to #1 involve editing after adequately advertising your proposed edits. CorporateM (Talk) 23:12, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Checking in on that, maybe I need to do a top to bottom read-through again. Ocaasi ^{t | c} 23:36, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

So question 3 is about talk page requests specifically, and raises the question of community response to those talk page requests. Question one is about direct editing primarily. Ocaasi ^{t | c} 23:38, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Highbeam

Hello Ocaasi. I was notified on my talk page that I had been approved for a Highbeam account and a Credo account. I received the Credo email with instructions and have been using it, but I never received an e-mail from Highbeam. Is there any way to get this taken care of? Thanks. Strebe (talk) 04:33, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

I resent your code. Cheers, Ocaasi ^{t | c} 20:41, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

COI questions

Hello, Ocaasi. You have new messages at WWB's talk page.
Message added 17:27, 9 March 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.