Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2021-03-28/News and notes

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Wikimedia LLC/Enterprise API

I fully support some mechanism by which Wikipedia can rely on revenues from alternative commercial sources and not just donations. This is a move in the right direction. werldwayd (talk) 20:49, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Here we go. WMF wants to be a Big Tech (must haved been growing a long time). Small-hands-fear? -DePiep (talk) 21:07, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

[1] editors to pee in a bottle. -DePiep (talk) 21:38, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I posted a few skeptical initial comments about the WMF's move. Based on their answers, I'm convinced that the current WMF is approaching this as cautiously as they should, and in good faith. I am still very concerned that *future* versions of the WMF will use this as a precedent for cultural change and greater commercial engagement. An organization is only as ethical as the people that work there. Right now, the WMF has good folks who really believe in Wikipedia's mission. It's critical that that continues to be true in the years to come. Ganesha811 (talk) 21:30, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Ganesha811 Would you mind linking to the discussion location (in on-wiki)? Would be useful to see. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 23:27, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like meta: Talk:Wikimedia Enterprise#Letting the wolves in at the door ☆ Bri (talk) 23:41, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If funding for the servers and core staff is ringfenced and limited to the sum of small donations, then in theory this scheme does not threaten editorial independence. It simply equates to licensing the Wikipedia name in order to fund other projects. That sounds acceptable, in theory. WMF must never forget that the value of their flagship product comes from at-will volunteer labor. Tread very carefully. Rollo (talk) 00:13, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Rollo: I started a discussion with them asking if their initial proposal limiting revenue raised this way to a minority (thus 49%) of the funding could be reduced to 1/3rd, and somewhat to my surprise - they agreed! Nosebagbear (talk) 00:50, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Good. Now stop duping readers for donations that don't go to editors. feminist (talk) 03:25, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- Glad to see someone beat me to raising this point. — Bilorv (talk) 07:34, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It is abhorrent that G***** are duping half of their audience, according to a study quoted in the well-chosen "From the archives", into misattributing free, decentralised volunteer labour to their leeching selves. Those who think there is any "mutually beneficial" aspect to this relationship are wrong. If G***** removed their Knowledge Graph, all data taken from Wikipedia, and all search result links to Wikipedia, then we are a big enough information source that they would see users flocking to already-better search engines such as DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, MetaGer and Qwant. It's also a PR disaster to have the news story "G***** kills Wikipedia". So both the WMF and our community need to get things straight: we are the ones with the leverage here. Brand loyalty for a search engine is fickle, but no Wikipedia 2 project has ever been successful. If we believed it was a big enough concern that a company was leeching off us then we could organise a blackout of our website that we pledge only to stop if they donate X amount of money or accede to some demands. A very careful and persuasive formulation of our argument as an anti-Big Tech or pro-"money to run our servers" message could get most of the general public on our side. (And we wouldn't even need WMF permission: we have the technical power to blackout and let them see what happens if they Office Action wheel war.) Admittedly, this situation is extreme and far-fetched and I know non-profits prefer stability in donations to, well, extortion, but I'm just aiming to prove that we have the power and we should not underestimate how we can use it if we organise. — Bilorv (talk) 07:34, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- Agree. However, our standard CC BY-SA licensing of information allows commercial distribution. So it appears that tech giants currently have a free pass with no obligation to thank the WMF monetarily, as long as they correctly attribute the info (which Knowledge Graph at least does). Brandmeister^talk 14:28, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - They are doing no less than the legal bare minimum, I agree, but there's no way they haven't done enough user experience testing to understand whether the average viewer knows where the information is coming from. If they wanted all viewers to be aware that the content comes from unpaid volunteers (and you can join them!) then there are ten different ways they could redesign the Knowledge Graph without interfering with its ease of use. — Bilorv (talk) 17:05, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    - I agree with Bilorv, there's a big difference between doing what your lawyers think would prevent a successful lawsuit, and doing what actually acknowledges the people who performed the labor that makes your profits possible. This looks a whole lot more like the former. Will the new relationship with WMF make commercial WP database users more likely to move in the better direction? ☆ Bri (talk) 13:27, 30 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I've no issue with strengthening the income base, esp. if that means there's less need for us to donate (as well as contributing to content). That said, "he who pays the piper, calls the tune" — will this mean that the big, bad tech corporations... sorry, the friendly providers of all that wonderful technology that enriches our lives (and keeps our servers humming)... will have a say over content etc.? No doubt, very little say, at least initially, but slippery slopes and all that. --DoubleGrazing (talk) 08:52, 30 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- Dear DoubleGrazing, I hope you will find that the various technical and policy procedures put in place to protect against precisely that concern - as described in the Principles and the FAQ#Financial - are suitably thorough. Sincerely, LWyatt (WMF) (talk) 13:12, 30 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - And I've posted a dissent from the Foundation's line. While it's not a given that customers will have an effect, intentional or accidental, on Wikipedia, IMHO it remains a possible outcome. -- llywrch (talk) 23:30, 30 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Uptick in editing

This is newsworthy. But I'm not sure why the Signpost should rely on the rather indirect "Time between edits" metric which has a lot of shortcomings (e.g. unable to exclude bot edits or to focus on mainspace edits), when filtered monthly edit count stats are readily available now and show the same thing more clearly.

(By the way, it should be noted that the while the volume of edits has been increasing, the number of active editors remains stagnant. Still, its former downwards trend that gave rise to so much "decline of Wikipedia" discussion and theorizing has already stopped about half a decade ago.)

Regards, HaeB (talk) 21:26, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. Seems to line up with the increase in users making 100+ edits per month since the start of the pandemic. Perhaps a reflection of increased time for superusers (or use of WP editing as a stress coping mechanism). The more casual user brackets (1-4 and 5-24 edits per month) remain stubbornly flat. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 23:23, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

But how much is just administration? Categories, short description, tagging, general fixes (See Also --> See also) and so on. It could be nice with some statistics... Christian75 (talk) 23:42, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I like Time Between Edits because it is such a Direct measure. You know it isn't going to be effected by things such as the creation of draftspace. True at least two spikes in it over the years have been attributed to bot activity, but I find it interesting to log that as well. And yes it isn't the only stat - if anyone had time available to expand the story then looking at another stat would have been a logical route. Ϣere SpielChequers 08:49, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@WereSpielChequers: Can you please take another look at the first sentence of this single-paragraph section in the singpost? It appears to be incomplete and I'm not sure what you're trying to say so I can't make any suggestions to fix it. Specifically, it seems to be lacking a verb. Thanks! ElKevbo (talk) 01:12, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed that pre-publication but let it slide. Perhaps As the world comes to 12 months of lockdowns, we recall ... ☆ Bri (talk) 01:16, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That works for me. Ϣere SpielChequers 08:49, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I wondered if the 2021 uptick might be linked to the "race for 6M" articles on English wikipedia. That was clearly an internal "campaign" which would account for the regular contributors making higher contributions than usual rather than attracting new contributors. We've had COVID lockdowns in my country on and off since March 2020. If lockdowns were the cause of increased editing, the uptick would have started back in 2020. I don't think an increase in 2021 can be attributed solely to lockdowns. Kerry (talk) 03:27, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Our 6 millionth article came last January at a time when we were doing 10 million edits every 62 days or so, so I don't see a link. The uptick did start a year ago, and I put that in the Signpost, but this latest spike went above anything we saw last year. Ϣere SpielChequers 08:49, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Article creation is a drop in the ocean compared to the many edits that the grinders make. They were chasing the billionth edit which was this. Andrew🐉(talk) 18:19, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, a new preprint that came out a week ago examines exactly this question in a more thorough fashion (finding that "contributions to the English Wikipedia increased by over 20% compared to the expectation derived from pre-pandemic data"). If anyone is interested in reviewing it for next month's "Recent research", feel free to sign up for it here (search for "Ruprechter"). Regards, HaeB (talk) 09:14, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It's amusing to see this happening at the same time as there's an attempt to delete our putative article about corporate media. Nothing to see here folks ... Andrew🐉(talk) 18:12, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]