Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)

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Is there interest in an RfC to disable centralnotice banners

On meta:Talk:Fundraising, Elli floated the idea of an RfC to disable the fundraising banners. Is there interest in such an RfC? It would surely be difficult to get anything done quickly enough for it to matter, with Christmas looming; on the other hand, it might have symbolic value and be instructive even for many Wikipedians who are unaware of just how much the WMF's money demands have increased, and how much the perception created by the banners is at odds with the financial realities (I estimate the WMF currently has $350 million to $400 million in cash, short-term and long-term investments, including the Endowment. In 2020/2021, it had a roughly $50 million surplus of revenue over expenses, but still went to South American countries hard hit by Covid, saying it needed money.) --Andreas JN466 11:49, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

• Latest WMF balance sheets, for reference. --Andreas JN466 11:54, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

As I've mentioned there, I'd certainly support such an RfC, though I am not exactly sure about the technical implementation. Certainly something symbolic would be appropriate to show our community's disapproval. The WMF plasters our site with obnoxious banners guilting our readers into giving money they often cannot spare, while pretending they're in dire straits as an organization when the reality could not be further from the truth. Would it be good to collect some donations? Sure, but not like this. If the WMF insists on deceptive and obnoxious fundraising banners, then I think we should seriously consider taking actions as a community to prevent them from being displayed. Elli (talk | contribs) 11:55, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. Kusma raised the idea, also on meta:Talk:Fundraising, of putting up sitenotices countering any misleading fundraising banners. This might actually be easier to implement, and could arguably be viewed as an attempt to implement WP:NPOV. As regards some of the banners currently shown, for example, it might be worth pointing out that the Endowment contains well over $100 million (the Foundation does not give timely updates on the exact amount) already, and reached its $100 million target five years early. --Andreas JN466 12:06, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Probably needs to be an anonnotice, as logged in editors aren't shown the terrible begging. People should only donate to the WMF if that doesn't impact their ability to donate to causes that need money in the next 50 years. —Kusma (talk) 12:15, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Right now I don't see any fundraising banners, even when logged out. Anyone else see any right now? --Andreas JN466 13:29, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

• Editors can already opt out of these at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-centralnotice-banners. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:29, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

  The half-truths are shown to readers who are not logged in. The point is not that I don't want to see the banners, it is that I object to the begging, which makes it sound like Wikipedia is in need of money at some point in the next ten years, and makes poor people feel guilty for not donating. —Kusma (talk) 17:31, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

• I honestly cannot see WMF countenancing the English Wikipedia making such a decision, much less allowing them to proceed with it.--WaltCip-(talk) 16:47, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

  It is still worth telling the WMF what we think of their fundraising banners. —Kusma (talk) 17:34, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

  And so, we shall go to war!

  No donations without representation! There's been wars over less. 2600:387:F:4333:0:0:0:2 (talk) 17:38, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

• @WaltCip and Xaosflux: That in itself, surely, is not a reason not to have an RfC. It would be about making a statement that we feel the tone and messaging of the fundraising banners are not compatible with Wikipedia's fundamental reason for being: to reflect facts as accurately as possible, and to counter misconceptions and fake news, rather than actively spreading them. This is a longstanding problem, with the same concerns recurring year after year (see e.g. the quotes in this Signpost piece from 2015) so I feel fairly confident we'll have the same or similar conversations again next year unless more is done. As for banner visibility for logged-in users, I think I am correct in saying that this year, logged-in users were not shown any banners, regardless of their preferences set-up. --Andreas JN466 17:51, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

What's an article that obtained FA while in progress?

In progress here can mean under construction, running in office, etc. I want to use that to see what can I improve on the article SpaceX Starship - in-dev launch vehicle. The closer topic of the article to Starship the better, but I don't mind that too much. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 15:34, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Are you asking whether we have a featured article about something (such as a product or a project) that is still in development? Blueboar (talk) 15:52, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Yup, exactly. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 15:53, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Hmmm… a quick look at the “Engineering and Technology” section at WP:FA indicates that we do not have any FAs that would help. They all seem to be about historical projects and products (etc) that have moved beyond the “in development” stage. Blueboar (talk) 16:06, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

This is difficult... I will try to make the article looks like one of these FAs, and make it modular to be appended while in progress. Let's be the first then :) CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 16:09, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

It would be difficult (but maybe not impossible) for an article to pass Featured article criteria 1b and 1e, that the article should be comprehensive and stable, if it was about such a topic. Phil Bridger (talk) 16:32, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Hmmm, this is interesting, since in its last two FAC, the article failed 1e not because the subject is changing, but due to the article not being complete. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 16:36, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

John McCain was promoted to FA in August 2008, while he was running for president, but I don't think that would be possible anymore. Barack Obama was promoted in 2004 (before being delisted earlier this year), Hillary Clinton in 2014, and it's not unusual to see athletes or coaches promoted during their active careers. I will note a FAC occurring during the middle of a major, ongoing event that could substantially change article content (think a major presidential candidate, or an ongoing sports season) would be unlikely to pass, and I've seen several athlete FAs have to go to FAR because they weren't kept up after promotion. Generally, things that are not "settled" or are actively changing don't make good FAC candidates. Hog Farm _Talk 20:49, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Closest thing that comes to mind is Ubinas and other topics that are being actively researched upon. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 21:19, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks! I will take a look at their FAC, and see what I can learn from it. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 00:11, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

Writing about statistics

Do we have any existing page (even an article) that explains how to write about statistics/percentages, and specifically a page that explains that "10% as likely" is not even remotely the same thing as "10% more likely"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:41, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Honestly, I've never found a mathematics-related topic on Wikipedia that's written in a comprehensible manner. Basic things about statistics like parametric model are a mixture of garbled verbiage and verbal garbage, I get maybe a few sentences in before I find myself begging to read at least one sentence that even vaguely resembles the English language. I say that because I don't know of any such page, and if someone creates one I'm sure it'd be written well enough that some of it could be adapted to fit a mainspace article. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 16:53, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Doesn't that fall under basic competence of the English language? Anyway, broadly relevant: Misuse of statistics. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 19:44, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

I'm asking because of Sex differences in medicine. Search for the word "times", which appears in both the "times as" and "times more" constructions. Without looking, I automatically suspect that half of them are wrong. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:47, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

There are many wrong or misrepresented numbers on Wikipedia, but it's not looking too wrong to me. I haven't checked every reference. Most occurrences use the 'times more than' construction. The other says, "1.4 times as common" - the reference for that says "risk ratio 1.4:1", and seems unambiguous. The "times more than" is somewhat debateable. "Two times more than" could either mean twice (2n) or thrice (n + 2n), however I think in common usage (outside of straight math(s)), it is commonly understood to mean the former. It may not be ideal language due to its ambiguity, a bit lazy but not overly wrong, and of course we sometimes just quote the sources. I'm sure WP:RDL would have something for you. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 23:43, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Until I corrected it yesterday, the "1.4 times" sentence said "1.4 times more common".

I think that "Two times more than" means (n + 2n), because "10% more than" means (n + .1n), and it would be basically innumerate to say that "110% more than" means exactly the same as just "10% more than". People in the real world might be sloppy, but we shouldn't be. WhatamIdoing (talk) 08:20, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

I congratulate you if you're improving this stuff. I'll wager that half the time you're going to trace this to the original source. Going back to the original question, I haven't seen anything addressing this. Wikipedia:Times more than would make for a good (if perhaps niche) essay. It could also be used to address "n times less than", which I've noticed has become strangely more common recently, and seems even more weird. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 09:14, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

Many people don't understand that it is weird. It would be better where possible to use absolute numbers rather than percentages or "times" because a lot of otherwise reasonably intelligent people, including the journalists and others who write our sources, just don't understand such relative numbers. For example, many people don't understand that taking a test with a high reliability percentage for a very rare disease can lead you to get a result saying that you are tested to have the disease but it is, in fact, much more likely that you do not. That follows from the math(s), but most people don't do it and assume that they are probably ill. Phil Bridger (talk) 09:57, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

I wonder if we should re-write these as natural numbers, e.g., "Fourteen men for every ten women".

@Zzuuzz, I have been seeing this in news/media sources for years. I don't remember seeing it in a scientific paper, but perhaps I just haven't noticed it before. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:08, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

English Fundraising banner campaign - further update

Dear all,

We are entering the last phase of the English banner fundraising campaign and banners are scheduled to be removed from Wikipedia on the 31st of December. While we will have part of the fundraising team working through the end of the year, many of our colleagues, including me, are taking time off between now and the first weeks of January. Please bear with us as we reply to any questions or comments here or on the fundraising meta talk page in mid-January.

Some updates on the banners:

Last week, we lowered the number of banners a reader/IP address sees from 10 banners to 6.  Banners are no longer shown for people who have already donated, closed a banner, or seen 6 banners. We are currently showing banners on less than half of the eligible pageviews in the campaign countries for these reasons. Banners are not being shown to logged in readers, as has been the set up for many years. We are planning to disable banners from the 23rd to the 27th of December. Similar to past years, we will run our final end of year reminder with the Endowment banners, between December 27th through the 31st.

The team has received valuable feedback from volunteers during the campaign. One suggestion was to include a message on the confirmation donor thank you page about how to disable banners across multiple devices. We are currently monitoring the response to this new message on the page. Thank you for this great idea to improve the reading experience for our donors. We have also adjusted banner messaging (e.g. removed the sentence including the number of fundraising banners we’ve shown). The team continues to incorporate feedback and work on improvements for our donors in the last few days we have left of the campaign.  

At this time of year, we receive thousands of notes from readers and donors. Please take a look at a few of these notes:

My £21 donation to Wiki P.

so learning's available for folks like me

Includes the 80p admin fee.

With appreciation to you Jimm ee…

(Donor from the UK)

Just wanted to let you know that I increased my donation from a one-time donation to a monthly donation based on your team. After making my initial donation, I asked how I could avoid being asked again each time I accessed your site. I received a quick and very helpful response, to which I replied with a thank you, and received a follow up “glad we could help” message. Now I know you don’t just provide a great website, but great customer service. And great customer service is a rarity these days! Thank you, Wikipedia, and Happy Holidays to you and your staff

(Donor from the US)

Thank you for your kind words of gratitude for such a small donation.

I do look up Wikipedia from time to time and it would be a real shame not to have this wonderful resource available at our fingertips.

What a legacy you have created, founding Wikipedia 20 years ago. I hope you and your staff enjoy your 20th year celebration and I hope there are many more years to come.

You should be very proud of your and your staffs achievements.

(Donor from Australia)

In the meanwhile:

• If you have specific ideas to share, please feel invited to add them to the fundraising meta talk page.
• If you need to report a bug or technical issue, please create a phabricator ticket.
• If you see a donor on a talk page, VRT or social media having difficulties in donating, please refer them to donate(at)wikimedia.org

Thank you all very much for your support and understanding during the campaign. We realise there has been pressure on volunteers monitoring the Teahouse and the Helpdesk these past weeks and we are very thankful to all of you who patiently responded to donor questions, complaints, and feedback.

I will be in touch again briefly at the start of January.

Best wishes, JBrungs (WMF) (talk) 13:56, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Hey look, another bunch of people paying the WMF and thanking Wikipedia. It's almost as if they believe that the banners they see on Wikipedia go directly to fund Wikipedia, and not to fund the organisation behind it which does many, many things, some of them even beneficial for Wikipedia! And of course, all of them believing that their donations are needed to keep Wikipedia running. As if... Fram (talk) 14:14, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

This seems to be a common confusion, which I once shared. A clear statement somewhere discoverable that Wikipedia's content is written and maintained by an unpaid volunteer community might help. The start of "Other areas of Wikipedia" on the main page could be a good place. Certes (talk) 15:27, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

What is also needed is more public awareness of WMF finances. At $350+ million in total funds, the Foundation is richer than ever. Suggestions? --Andreas JN466 16:43, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Hiring a few developers to address some long-standing technical requests might reduce that to $349m. Every little helps. Certes (talk) 17:01, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

how about putting a box with a link to the latest WMF financial statements on the main page? --Andreas JN466 18:07, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

@Fram and Certes: well, can't hurt to ask:Talk:Main_Page#How_about_a_temporary_box_with_WMF_financial_information_this_month --Andreas JN466 18:43, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Never mind "common", it's a universal confusion among the people I know in real life (unless I disabuse them of the notion). We need to get the hell rid of these banners ourselves, as the WMF will never do so. The comment by JBrungs (WMF) above selects three positive messages and ignores all of the devastating messages we receive onwiki by people guilty about the small scale of their donations because they're in poverty but think Wikipedia is at risk of financial collapse. I can only assume the WMF catches wind of this feedback too. Fram is right on the money. Wikipedia is on the verge of collapse, but through lack of volunteers, due in some part to how the WMF treats us—as Fram understands more than almost anybody. — Bilorv (talk) 11:23, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

Few editors have anything good to say about the banners. They're symptoms of the WMF's scope creep from service provider to owner and controller. However, having been foolish enough to hand over our trademark and domain name, I'm not sure what we can do. I almost took a wikibreak from 30 Nov to 31 Dec, with a user page notice explaining why. I decided against that, as its slight effect would hurt readers and colleagues but be invisible to WMF members. An RfC on the community's opinion on the campaign might or might not have any effect. Wikipedia rightly avoids "this house applauds/condemns..." motions, but there may be a valid case to ignore all rules. Certes (talk) 16:26, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia rightly avoids "this house applauds/condemns..." motions It sure feels like Parliament around here sometimes. WaltCip-(talk) 14:52, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

• I'm less cynical about the WMF's desire to create an endowment than some others here—it's a valid, forward-looking way to ensure an institution can carry on its mission in perpetuity. But I can't help but notice that in both the U.S. and Australia examples above, the donor referred to "you and your staff". That's yet more evidence affirming Bilorv's view that donors think they're supporting the contributors behind Wikipedia, rather than the support organization. The language of the fundraising banner doesn't just allow that misinterpretation to persist, but I suspect actively reinforces it.
  JBrungs (WMF), please recognize that when you share these examples of donors thinking they're supporting Wikipedia editing and celebrate their comments, that's not how it comes across to us. From our end, what we see is people thinking they're giving to us, but we're not actually getting that money, and we're not feeling enough of its impact.
  On feeling its impact, yes, the WMF is doing lots of good work in some areas, but the community has put in a lot of effort to make very clear what our priorities are—addressing more than a tiny fraction of wishlist items, for instance, or responding when we shout about issues like WP:THEYCANTHEARYOU—and they're not being met, while instead we're seeing things that no one in the community asked for like the foundation renaming getting top priority. There's also really not any sort of large-scale effort to channel the foundation's resources back to the community in ethically permitted ways—project grants affect only a tiny number of editors, there's no established pipeline from community volunteers to WMF jobs, Wikimania scholarships are hit or miss (compared to "we'll pay full ride for every admin or similarly established editor (e.g. 6 months/2500 edits/25 edits in the last month/not blocked) who wants to attend, as it's the least we can do"), and the T-shirt giveaway program is virtually unknown (you could afford to offer every established editor a T-shirt or similar as a holiday gift, and to do the same every year).
  So in short, the main reason you're encountering constant grumbles about these fundraising banners is not just that editors don't understand endowments (some of us do), but rather that the community is angry that the WMF is not allocating resources in ways that support us. When you report up to the C suite folks about how the fundraising this year went, I hope you talk about the allocation concerns and make it clear that addressing them would help, not just reduce to "we got the normal pushback from some in the community who don't understand why we want an endowment". {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 23:26, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

  Well said. I don't think anyone is against raising the funds needed to run Wikipedia and similar projects and maintain a prudent surplus. The endowment, whilst contentious, is not unreasonable. The problem we see is excessive sums being begged to feed an allegedly starving Wikipedia then squandered elsewhere, year after year. Certes (talk) 00:39, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

  Agreed, Sdkb. Sometimes it feels like the additional money the WMF has at its disposal just buys more highly-paid employees (who have never added one byte to Wikipedia or any other Wikimedia project and never would) who then, without consulting the community, come up with grand, but obviously flawed ideas (Knowledge Engine, rebranding, Universal Code of Conduct, human rights policy ...) they try to ram down everyone's throats ... rather than doing the down-to-earth stuff the community tells them is actually needed. The downside of having too much money ... it attracts the wrong people.

  The WMF reported a "Salaries, other compensation and employee benefits" total of $55,634,913 for a total of 291 employees in its most recent, 2019 Form 990, yielding an average of $191,000 per employee. Compare this cost per employee to the equivalent figures for:

  • Tides Advocacy: $53,000 ($16,806,475 for 318 employees) [1]
  • Clinton Foundation: $69,000 ($22,771,483 for 329 employees) [2]
  • National Public Radio: $117,000 ($155,969,720 for 1,335 employees) [3]
  • Smithsonian Institute: $98,000 ($720,516,048 for 7,364 employees) [4]

  Moreover, the salaries and wages total reported by the WMF has increased by an annual 20% for the three most recent years we have records for. Various individuals have had salary increases of 50% and more in the space of four years. All of this relies on funding from people who were made to believe by your fundraising banners that you were running out of money to keep Wikipedia online. This has to stop.

  If you want to expand your paid staff, tell the public in which areas this expansion is to take place, and what the benefit will be. Don't claim to be "super-efficient" if your employees are earning two to three times what people in comparable nonprofits take home. --Andreas JN466 18:17, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

  Please be fair to the WMF. You can't expect people raking in over $191,000 per annum to get their hands dirty by talking to mere volunteer editors, so each one needs someone on below $191,000 to take care of their communication with us. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:03, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

  Mean averages are often misleading, due to massive income inequality between levels of the hierarchy. It's really the upper management that we're going to be concerned about as the wrong type of people, and these will be the people making more than average. I am happy that the WMF were able to, so far as I've heard, furlough and give fair treatment to all employees when COVID-19 restrictions have impeded the WMF's normal functioning. However, they need to adopt a maximum wage cap at, say, double the lowest-earning employee's salary (and progressively lower it from there until it's at a 1:1 ratio). If you don't like that then either you're not in your job for the right reasons, or the lowest-earning employee is not making enough money to live on. We all volunteer here for $0 per annum, some of us more than 40 hours per week. — Bilorv (talk) 11:03, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Upcoming Call for Feedback about the Board of Trustees elections

You can find this message translated into additional languages on Meta-wiki.

More languages • Please help translate to other languages.

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The Board of Trustees is preparing a call for feedback about the upcoming Board Elections, from January 7 - February 10, 2022.

While details will be finalized the week before the call, we have confirmed at least two questions that will be asked during this call for feedback:

• What is the best way to ensure fair representation of emerging communities among the Board?

• What involvement should candidates have during the election?

While additional questions may be added, the Movement Strategy and Governance team wants to provide time for community members and affiliates to consider and prepare ideas on the confirmed questions before the call opens. We apologize for not having a complete list of questions at this time. The list of questions should only grow by one or two questions. The intention is to not overwhelm the community with requests, but provide notice and welcome feedback on these important questions.

Do you want to help organize local conversation during this Call?

Contact the Movement Strategy and Governance team on Meta, on Telegram, or via email at msgwikimedia.org.

Reach out if you have any questions or concerns. The Movement Strategy and Governance team will be minimally staffed until January 3. Please excuse any delayed response during this time. We also recognize some community members and affiliates are offline during the December holidays. We apologize if our message has reached you while you are on holiday.

Best,

Movement Strategy and Governance

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Thank you. Xeno (WMF) (talk) 20:12, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

Need help to the discussion on List of Taiwanese inventions and discoveries

Hi all.

I guess there is some deadlock on the talk page of List of Taiwanese inventions and discoveries. We need some help especially editors who are familiar with Political status of Taiwan.

In brief, a editor add Bopomofo in the list for its inventor is a citizen of Republic of China, which is formally named Taiwan. However, some Taiwanese editor don't agree the editing because Bopomofo was published in 1918 while Taiwan is still under the rule of Japan. The inventor of Bopomofo is not a Taiwanese yet, though he came to Taiwan with the government of Republic of China in 1949. We think the definition of "Taiwanese" is better if only included citizen of Republic of China since 1945 or 1949 (more similar as the definition of article Taiwanese people, or it could make some problem (for example, if Mao Zedong invited something before 1949, that would be a Taiwanese invention). But the original editor like since 1912 more because he thinks the ROC which is named Taiwan also today is the same country as the ROC before. Now that a citizen of ROC today is Taiwanese, it no reason to a citizen of ROC before 1945 can't be seen as a Taiwanese.

The same debate also happen on Chinese Wikipedia. A third part editor renamed (moved) the article to "List of inventions and discoveries of Taiwan in post-war period" then ended the debate. However I understand there are different rule between Wikipedia in different languages, maybe it not work in here. However, to ask some third part opinion may be helpful.--Reke (talk) 07:29, 31 December 2021 (UTC)