Talk:Wikimedia movement

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Peer reviewers: Andrewmcfar.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 12:57, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Peer Review

I thought the Lead section for this article was well-written, and provides readers with a concise understanding of what the Wikimedia movement is. I found the Structure of the article to be logical; however, the sections were quite short and could benefit from additional information. In particular, there should be more information on the "Wikipedia community" section, the "Projects" sections should include a sentence or two description highlighting each project (rather than a word or phrase), and there should be the name of the "thematic organization" that was listed along with more information about it (otherwise the section should be removed as it is only one vague sentence). I thought there were Reliable Sources for the information in the article. The Grammar/Spelling was accurate to the best of my knowledge. Andrewmcfar (talk) 00:19, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

If this article was about anything else...

... it would fail an AfD discussion. No third-party sourcing for most of the content, and unduly promotional. If there is a policy that says such rules don't apply to this topic, I've not seen it. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:35, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Agree. If no credible third-party sourcing is added, this article should be nominated to AFD.--Darwinek (talk) 10:49, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Deleting this article would be unfortunate in view of what can be done. I spent a lot of time on the article in French and I even proposed it to the label as a good article. Unfortunately, there is indeed not enough ternary source for it to be accepted. I regret that my English isn't good enough for me to work on the English version. Lionel Scheepmans ^{✉ Contact} _{(French native speaker)} 21:19, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Infobox

Leaving aside the many other issues with this navel-gazing exercise, I note that the infobox states that the 'movement' is an 'informal organization'. It also gives a website - 'wikimedia.org'. The latter is the website of a legally-registered charitable non-profit organization with multi-million-dollar income and assets: clearly nothing 'informal' about that. Given the obvious contradiction here, the infobox would seem to need amendment, though I suspect any resolution of the matter might require admitting that this article seems to be conflating at least two different things... AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:06, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

The informal organization has an informal arrangement with the Wikimedia Foundation. It's not an "official website" of the movement, per se. Informal organizations don't always have formal websites. The "terms of use" and "privacy policy" for that site are Wikimedia Foundation terms and policies, they are not movement terms and policies. Obviously the movement conforms to Foundation terms and policies while providing services to the Foundation on Foundation sites. wbm1058 (talk) 15:22, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Remember that the only members of the Wikimedia Foundation are the members of its board of directors. I am not a member of the Foundation, but I am a member of the movement. wbm1058 (talk) 15:29, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Do you have third-party sources for all of that stuff about 'informal arrangements'? AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:22, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

'Wikipedia community'

There are serious issues here. Firstly, this subsection should clearly, if this putative 'movement' actually exists as a global across-phenomenon (the recent AfD made it clear that this is open to debate) be entitled 'Wikipedia communities', since the many diverse Wikipedia projects within the overall remit of the WMF do not share the same 'community'. And secondly, the section should not be making general statements about how such projects are structured, based apparently on what the English-language Wikipedia does. They are (at least nominally) automatous, subject to the constraints the WMF imposes on them, and accordingly statements about one may not apply to all For example, as I understand it (I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong) not all the Wikipedia projects have an Arbitration Committee. It is, to my mind, grossly improper for the English-language Wikipedia to be presenting itself as the archetype for all projects, even if only doing so through carelessness. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:05, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps "individual project communities" or "Wikimedia project communities". IMO that subsection should not be under "organizations" (which, apart from "Wikipedia community", are all [relatively] formally constituted organizations). It might do to explain that there is a community which emerges on each project, link to the list of projects, and give some examples based on the sources. Without wading back into "is it a movement," there is overlap between values, even if they're high-level ones: belief in the importance of free to access content, belief in the importance of free to use content, trying to encourage participation, using wiki software (and all that entails), a collaborative spirit, a commitment to discussion/discourse, etc. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 03:13, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Appropriateness of citing the Wikimedia Foundation

Under what circumstances is it appropriate to cite the Wikimedia Foundation or its representatives as a neutral source on the Wikimedia movement?

There is a current dispute about this at special:diff/1042925817/1042929328

oppose citing WMF. The Wikimedia Foundation is not the representative of the Wikimedia movement. When there is a choice between developing the WMF as a corporation versus promoting the ethics and values of the Wikimedia movement, the WMF more often chooses its finances and paid staff while the Wikimedia community of volunteers more often choose ethically. The Wikimedia Foundation has a conflict of interest here and for all the usual WP:COI reasons we should avoid citing them in this article. Blue Rasberry (talk) 00:14, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Neither the WMF nor anyone purporting to be a 'representative of the Wikimedia movement' should be cited for an assertion that "the Wikimedia movement is the global community of contributors to the Wikimedia projects". This is opinion, not fact. It has to be, since nobody has ever presented the slightest evidence that all or even the majority of contributors to the many projects hosted on WMF servers consider themselves part of a global 'movement' or 'community', or necessarily support the supposed objectives of this 'movement'. The whole thing appears to be wishful thinking, and/or a denial of what should be self-evident - that people edit the many projects for all sorts of reasons, many of which have little or nothing to do with the idealistic waffle that the WMF and some of the more enthusiastic contributors to projects tend to come up with. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:31, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

In my opinion, under no circumstances. We wouldn't consider IBM a neutral source on IBM, and nor should we consider the WMF a neutral source on WM. For full clarity, in accordance with my understanding of standard COI and independence policies, I consider this lack of neutrality to extend beyond the organization, to their employees, their board of trustees, and, depending on the specifics, the recipients of their grants. BilledMammal (talk) 00:49, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

I agree with those above. That being said, as we explored in the AfD and as described in the second paragraph of the close, no non-WMF sources exist. So we would have to leave it with a permanent {{citation needed}} if we don't accept the WMF as a RS for this statement (which we shouldn't). It's a conundrum, really; it's impossible to write a policy-compliant article, but people also don't want to delete because it's Wikimedia-related, so what should be done? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:23, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Remove any improperly-sourced statements, per policy. If that leaves the article with no definition of its supposed subject matter, and people insist that it has to exist anyway, they will have to get sourcing policy amended. Or do the sensible thing, accept that Wikipedia should stop pretending it can be a tertiary source on itself, and move it out of article space. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:37, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

I also find myself questioning the inclusion of some of the first-party verifiable facts; while they are verifiable, we are unable to put (them) in context with explanations referenced to independent sources, as required by WP:INDISCRIMINATE, for there is no cited coverage by independent sources. There may be uncited coverage, but I haven't been able to find it.

This issue also extends, to a lesser extent, to WikiMedia, but this can of worms is difficult enough without opening up that one. BilledMammal (talk) 22:50, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

So-called helpful

@Wbm1058:

1. Name section - if you think it is helpful, then add the same content to every articles with the word "Wikimedia" in their titles. This is about "Wikimedia movement" not "Wikimedia".
2. "Wikimedia movement governance is incomplete by design" - clarify what it means by that and how it is helpful.
3. "wiki administrators are not employees or agents of the Wikimedia Foundation" - talking about the community in general, not singling out individuals and duties, especially in the lede, need to put it in other space.
4. See also section - link to "Wikipedia:meta", it's just one website of the projects; link to this article in another language, it's unhelpful simply because it's in another language. TiniLith (talk) 09:47, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

Articles with the word "Wikimedia" in their title – I suppose I should review all of these for a holistic approach to the topic area. – wbm1058 (talk) 11:30, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

A holistic approach would probably start by going through the lot, and removing anything not supported by legitimate independent sourcing, since this seems to be endemic in these navel-gazing exercises. Or deleting them entirely on the basis that Wikipedia shouldn't be pretending to be a tertiary source on itself...

As for TinLith's comments, I'd say they all have validity. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:28, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

I'd also like to add that I agreed with these changes by TiniLith when I originally saw them on my watchlist. e.g. Wikimedia movement governance is incomplete by design didn't make sense to me, esp in the opening paragraph. It seemed like just inserting anything that can be sourced, but I didn't feel like cutting it myself. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:28, 16 October 2021 (UTC)