Village pump/Archive3

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Archives: 1, 2, 3

eo reviewed

Please publish the reviewed version of Call for participation/Appeal letter/eo instead of the actual which contains lot of errors. Thanks --ArnoLagrange 06:44, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Noted, I see that you updated the letter - we'll push changes out with the next set of updates. -- Philippe 19:38, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

And when will that happen ? We use to see things happen more quickly in wikis ! ArnoLagrange 17:22, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, the process broke this week, no question. The updates are being done now. -- Philippe 03:21, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Not yet done !!! ArnoLagrange 11:55, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Huh... I was under the impression those updated were done several days ago. Let me check.  :( -- Philippe 13:00, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Doubt

Where do the translations of the names of the languages in the drop down menu at http://volunteer.wikimedia.org/ come from? Thanks. --Toliño 15:40, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't know the answer to that. Do you have concerns about some of them? If so, drop me a note on my talk page, and I'll look into it. -- Philippe 19:39, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I would like to correct one and to translate into Galician those which aren't translated. In addition, I wish the page Call for participation/Appeal letter/gl to be updated at http://volunteer.wikimedia.org/ (I've corrected to links); could somebody do it? Thanks again. --Toliño 17:21, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Update

A quick update on the Call for Participation: some people have asked about application submission numbers. We're sitting at right about 900 applications submitted since the Call for Participation went up, around 72 hours ago. This is a fairly spectacular number of people who have taken the time to fill out the application, and we're pleased with the quality of the submissions. We're working on some analytics to get better statistics, but that's the easy interim measure. -- Philippe 21:04, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Congratulations. Goldzahn 04:05, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, but this one was an incredible team effort. There were literally hundreds of people involved in translating and proof-reading, tons of people who gave input, and a number of people who are handling things as they come in. In addition to that, there are a large number of people - including you, Goldzahn - who are keeping the wiki running while Eugene and I turn our focus elsewhere temporarily. It's a fairly amazing collection of people and talents. -- Philippe 04:08, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, there are so many people being part of that wiki. And I like most that everyone is friendly and welcoming. Thank you all. Goldzahn 06:34, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

That comment made me smile inside, because that's one of the things that Eugene and I set as a benchmark for ourselves. We wanted this to be an affirming place. I'm glad it's working. -- Philippe 07:42, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

What Philippe said. I'm really happy to hear this, and I really appreciate all of the work you've put into this project. Many thanks! --Eekim 01:47, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

The Letter from Michael Snow and Jimmy Wales is available in many languages at http://volunteer.wikimedia.org/. The Task force application form is only available in English at http://volunteer.wikimedia.org/volunteer/ altough it is translated into many languages at Call for participation/Task force application. Will it be available in other languages too shortly? HenkvD 18:09, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

HenkvD, we tried to do more than we were capable of with the translations, and it was my fault. We had mistakenly thought that we could translate the form first, then just add them to the application. We totally underestimated the amount of work it takes to translate an app -- there are form fields, buttons, etc. We were also working under an extremely small timescale. In hindsight, we should have asked for advice earlier, drawing from folks like you and GerardM. We also should have used translatewiki. In any case, I'm really thankful for all of the hard work from the translators. We'll capture this as a lesson learned for next time. --Eekim 01:47, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. HenkvD 08:28, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Maybe you could create a page dedicated to updating us on the advancement of the project (great project by the way! thank you for your work). It could sum up what has been done so far and what remains to be done. You could also include some other data like how many people in each task-force, how many proposals so far, maybe add a to-do list for urgent tasks etc. You could update it every week or so and add a link to the main page. -- Ryk V 00:03, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Nice idea, thank you. Those things are all available, but spread out.... I will do as you suggest. :) -- Philippe 00:44, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Great! Thanks. -- Ryk V 14:09, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Reliable sources

• We gotta clearly explain what kind of websites can be used as reliable references. And the websites that don't come under the category cannot post links unless authorized by an administrator. By doing this we can reduce spam links. It will take a lot of time but once we are at full swing spamming be brought to a halt. Its just my thought. Like we have a white list page we can have a page and an archive for websites that are classified as reliable.Syler.mi4 12:17, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

editing Navigation menu

How can I change the Korean Navigation menu ? Two of the items have to be changed. (Fact base -> '사실 근거', Random proposals -> '무작위 제안' or '임의 제안') Jtm71 09:14, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

You are looking for MediaWiki:Fact base/ko and I guess MediaWiki:Random proposals/ko. User:HenkvD did this. Goldzahn 12:43, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Done. HenkvD 17:52, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Watchlist problems

For some reason, whenever I create a new page (such as to welcome a user, etc.) that page is automatically added to my watchlist. I find it a bit inconvenient to have to manually remove it every time. Is there a way to disable this feature? i tried looking in the prefs but didn't see anything about that. Thanks, Tempodivalse 13:52, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

My Preferences/Watchlist/Add pages I created to watchlist. MarianoC 14:08, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Ah! I looked everywhere but there. :-) Thanks. Tempodivalse 14:14, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Cross posting

I am cross posting here, for greater visibility, a question from some of us who are involved in this project. It has to do with the word "diversity" and it's trans-cultural meaning. Could you please read and comment at Talk:Emerging_strategic_priorities#The_word_.22Diversity.22? -- Philippe 00:31, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

comment

I have read the pdfs mentioned at Interviews and yesterday the Reach/Regional Analysis. This is so much valuable content, you won´t find something similar on meta or the mailinglist foundation-I. I know there is Sitemap. Maybe we should create something like Sitemap for the task force members and advisers? Or I could update Sitemap and keep it updated? What do you think?

There is another thing. I had been member of an student organization like w:AIESEC and I took part in something similar to the strategic planning process. I learned from that, that keeping the community involved is important. Phase 2 is about the task force, maybe commenting the weekly status reports could be something to keep the community involved? But the reports will be presented in English and translating 15 reports each week is to much work. Well, are there any plans? Goldzahn 00:45, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Hi Goldzahn - I'm glad you brought this up, because it gives me an opportunity to say something that I should have been saying more loudly and more clearly. Although Phase II is primarily the work of the task forces, the entire community is invited to engage in that work along with the task forces. That is, if you're not on the task force for ESP2, that doesn't mean you shouldn't feel entirely free to go to their little corner of the wiki and comment and engage fully in the process. Task forces will be working in a transparent way unless there is a critical reason to keep something confidential. Community members should expect to remain fully engaged during that time. Community input is not just desirable, it is absolutely vital. In fact, Eugene and I envision a whole other set of task forces - self-organized around issues that community members think are important that didn't make the Strategic Priorities list. We would strongly encourage those self-organized groups to also work transparently on this wiki, and ask that they report out their findings for the final, synthesis, stage. I will, to the best of my ability, support those self-organizing task forces as well as the "official" ones.

Second point, as to the information contained in the Interviews and Fact base pages - our friends at Bridgespan have done a phenomenal job pulling that together, with a tremendous amount of help from the community. It will, indeed, be made easily accessible to the task forces. At this point, I'm imagining that each task force will have a "landing page" that will draw the immediately relevant documents to one place, and will provide links to everything from best practices to resources. I'd love it if someone would take a first crack at that page.... there are people in the community who can do that so much better than I.... -- Philippe 02:35, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

About your first point. I know that because I read all the pages on this wiki. In the community I don´t think that is known. At least for the de:WP there is no discussion about this wiki. I will write something about the Phase 2 at our "signpost", but this will not change the situation (that is my experience). And of course there are only few projects with at least one editor who is familiar with what is going on in the strategy-wiki. Another point is that there are so many pages in this wiki that someone who is going to read them all will spent many hours reading. Maybe a short abstract about Phase 2 which is published on each wiki could make a difference? Well, I will see what the team is going to do about that. Goldzahn 03:43, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

The importance of "Task forces" is greatly exagerated. Regular community activity should be more supported, because action is required right now, not in a year when a plan is ready that becomes obsolete immediately.--Kozuch 15:25, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

The Sitemap is an attempt to keep some overview of all the pages on this wiki. Feel free to update it. Feel free to create a new map for task forces if that is prefered. HenkvD 09:28, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

It´s updated now. Goldzahn 23:05, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I have started the Landing page. The layout is from one of my portal-layouts and the content from the Sitemap. Goldzahn 02:52, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I just left a message on your talk page about this, but wanted to also say publicly that I am very excited with the way you've gotten started on that. It's really exciting! -- Philippe 03:29, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

corrupt pdf

Somehow on my system I can view the submitted pdf's of interview notes. However, on other systems those pdf's appear to be corrupt (and probably really are). Those interview notes could as well be dumped on an article page ... if the submitter doesn't like editing of the notes, page protection is available. Dedalus 21:19, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

I will let John know... -- Philippe 00:57, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Reader Rated Pages

Some quick updates as of now:

Pages where priority = high:

Proposal:Easier Editing (1,167 bytes)
Proposal:Right to Left support (1,318 bytes)
Proposal:A "be bold" campaign (7,138 bytes)
Proposal:Core topics complete (2,753 bytes)
Proposal:Multilingual Wiktionary (2,891 bytes)
Proposal:Keep the servers running (2,450 bytes)

Pages where impact = high:

Proposal:A "be bold" campaign (7,138 bytes)
Proposal:Peer review by academic institutions (1,039 bytes)
Proposal:Create a reputation system and require logging-in to edit (6,272 bytes)
Proposal:WYSIWYG default editor (2,845 bytes)
Proposal:A central wiki for interlanguage links (2,848 bytes)
Proposal:Expert review (2,646 bytes)
Proposal:Multilingual Wiktionary (2,891 bytes)
Proposal:Stop using wikis for tasks for which wikis are not suitable (9,790 bytes)
Proposal:Offline Wikipedia (6,671 bytes)
Proposal:Less anonymity (1,826 bytes)
Proposal:Interlanguage reunification (2,087 bytes)
Proposal:Easier Editing (1,167 bytes)
Proposal:No more Fair Use (2,171 bytes)
Proposal:Keep the servers running (2,450 bytes)

Pages where feasibility = high:

Proposal:Stay the same (1,146 bytes)
Proposal:A central wiki for interlanguage links (2,848 bytes)
Proposal:Universal User Page (2,578 bytes)
Proposal:Inline SVG preference (1,787 bytes)
Proposal:A "be bold" campaign (7,138 bytes)
Proposal:Universal login eligibility by default (1,310 bytes)
Proposal:Keep the servers running (2,450 bytes)

There are no pages where desirability = high.

-- Philippe 02:21, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Where do you get the data from?Kozuch 19:08, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi Kozuch - it's at Special:RatedPages. :-) -- Philippe 19:50, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Action required now, and over and over again (continuous improvement)

The Process is so yesterday, like most of Wikimedia (unfortunatelly). Action is required right now and not in a year, when the "strategic plan" is obsolete again. Who elected the Task Force Selection Committee? Under which rules will be Task forces' members elected? Too many unanswered questions for a public project.

Why can't we promote, push and use simple voting methods like the What do you think of this proposal? (someone called it ReaderFeedback tool above) which give almost immediate results and tie great part of general public into it? This method is fast, clear and very effective. All we need to do is set deadlines for voting. It should happen in cycles, maybe few months, both voting and action (action taken by Wikimedia developers, because this all will mostly be about software) and over and over again - voting, action. Voting actually means project evaluation, as this strategy will be ongoing stuff, it will not end after 5 years when the plan is completed, it just needs to be here forever as a tool for continuous improvement.--Kozuch 15:48, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Hi Kozuch - I'll write a longer response to you at some point today, but wanted to point out that the ReaderFeedback tool is in place at the bottom of each proposal. The information from that will be key to evaluating the proposals as we move forward. -- Philippe 16:28, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Hi, and welcome Kozuch. Process explains the whole Task forces and Task Force Selection Committee process. And as Philippe pointed out, we are using ReaderFeedback.

To your more general point, the expectation is not that action will stop while we all figure out a strategy. It's often useful to take a step back for a moment, examine the big picture, and make more informed, collective decisions. This is what this project is all about.

I'd strongly encourage you to read Process. It should be clear that, despite the existence of a committee, there's not a lot of bureaucracy around this project. The way to participate is to edit pages, just as it is on any other wiki. --Eekim 00:04, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

New talk: page formats to roll out

Sometime last this week or early next week, the strategy wiki will be the first "live" Foundation wiki to get a new tool called "Liquid Threads". You may have heard us talk about it before, but now's the time to make sure you really "get" what it's going to do. This is a "public beta" test, so it's possible some things will be buggy. You can report bugs at http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org.

Liquid Threads will essentially change the "talk" page interface for any conversations started from the deployment date forward. Archived and older conversations will not be affected. The idea behind liquid threads is to make talk pages work more like web forums or instant messages. You'll be able to track the "thread" of a conversation easily and tell when people begin talking.

If you'd like to play with it, there is a test deployment in public "alpha" testing at http://wiki.werdn.us/test/view/Talk:Main_Page - that is Werdna's (the developer) personal wiki. If you run into any problems on that wiki, he'd like you to let him know.

This is a big moment for the Foundation - LiquidThreads had been very dormant until Werdna revived it, and its' a major step forward for usability. It's cool to get to test it on Strategy. -- Philippe 19:44, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Is it in use yet? Because if it is, I can't see the difference, or maybe you have to enable it in "My preferences"? -- Ryk V 21:41, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Nope, deployment delayed a week; I think perhaps in the next 48 hours or so. -- Philippe 22:53, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

The Reason for the Slowing Growth Trends

The core group of editors is too insecure. They have become afraid of new contributions. There is too much focus on NPOV, Verifiability, Original Research, Notability, Citations, etc. Like it or not we have to synthesize the article ourselves. If we refuse to write anything that isn't already written we will not get articles. Wikipedia articles aren't already written. Bensaccount 23:11, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Volunteers still needed

Hi all,
Although we soon will remove the centralnotice that is up, the Wikimedia Foundation is still looking for volunteers to serve as subject area experts or to sit on task forces that will study particular areas and make recommendations to the Foundation about its strategic plan. You may apply to serve on a task force or register your name as an expert in a specific area at http://volunteer.wikimedia.org.
When the task forces begin to meet, they will do their work transparently and on this wiki, and any member of the community may join fully in their work. This process is specifically designed to involve as many community members as possible.

Any questions can be addressed to me either on my talk page here or by email to philippe at wikimedia.org.

I hope you'll consider joining us!

-- Philippe 03:14, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

"...they will do their work transparently and on this wiki, and any member of the community may join fully in their work." In other words the Task forces do not need to exist at all. So lets start working right now without them. Where will we begin?--Kozuch 19:01, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

The task forces exist so that there are some people who are specifically accountable for the work. Others are welcome to join as much or as little as they would like. The first task forces, their mandates, and their documents will be finalized next week. :) -- Philippe 21:49, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

"some people who are specifically accountable for the work" sounds very non-wiki to me. What happens when I disagree with the person who is accountable - do they out !vote me? WereSpielChequers 23:12, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

I phrased that poorly. They are responsible and accountable only for seeing that the work is done and the deliverables are in on time. They have no more voice than anyone else. -- Philippe 23:17, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

I think this wiki needs to change the way it works. See my Proposal:Dump Task forces on this wiki and start real work ourselves. Kozuch 06:23, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Kozuch, the Foundation was established, in no small part, to ensure that the various projects remain in alignment with the worldwide mission. The Foundation is accountable to its donors -- it has a responsibility to ensure that efforts are continually being devoted to furthering its mission.

This wiki exists, and there are people here, due to efforts of the Foundation.

The fact that the project is being run in such a way as to maximize participation and transparency strikes me as a strong indication that there is sufficient harmony between the staff and the volunteer community to move forward productively.

As you seem to disagree, I would suggest a different course of action than the one you're pursuint: rather than making demands within this process, simply start a different web site. Take all the content from here -- it's freely available. You can't use trademarks like "Wikipedia" etc., but everything else is available -- the software is open source, etc. etc. Start up a different site, and build a community of people who share your goal of being utterly free of any bureaucracy.

In the meantime, we have a lot of work to do here, and most of us would like to work together, and not create artificial divisions. If you are able, please join us in that pursuit; if not, I wish you the best of luck in your pursuits. -Peteforsyth 22:45, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

I am inclined to agree instead with Philippe and Phoebe on the talk page of Kozuch's proposal: a desire to just get started doing important work is valid. We don't know yet whether the Task Force process will be more or less useful to the end goal than other processes. Other perspectives are welcome, and we should find a way to help Kozuch and others work on this wiki and with the TFs even if they have found a more effective way to research and consolidate input. Sj 23:29, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

PT and PT-BR translations, what for?

I'm Brazilian and I'm curious about the motives for having two translations of the letter, notice, etc to Portuguese. I believe both to be interchangeable and therefor unnecessary. Also, there is only one lusophonic wikipedia, which i believe renders the differentiation between who will be targeted each translated version impossible. Willing hear from you guys. Adrian Neuhaus 15:22, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Some Brazilians belief Brazilean Portuguese differs enough from Portuguese to be treated as a separate language. Of course that is non sense. Everybody should speak and write proper Dutch. Dedalus 20:48, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

I understand someone wrote a routine that allows multiple versions of a language on the same wiki, different alphabets or some spelling variations. I might make a proposal for wider use of that. WereSpielChequers 23:17, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

I've had problems with this issue, I am waiting for a position. Edit only in /pt, do not worry for now with /pt-br. Abraço. Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton 01:41, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Would this Proposal:More multi dialect wikis. be of relevance to Portuguese/Brazilian Portuguese matters? WereSpielChequers 15:10, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

??Brazilian Portuguese is not a dialect! Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton 17:24, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Outputs - signpost and Village pump friendly

I think it would help us communicate with the rest of wikimedia, and avoid this being perceived as a top down process of a central strategy being imposed on the projects if we started the following three processes.

1. Categorise proposals by projects potentially affected.
2. Identify which proposals are relevant to only one project, and either broaden them to being multiproject or move them from here to that project.
3. Create a weekly report of the ten most supported proposals that are relevant to each project and report back to the village pumps/newsletters or equivalent of each project.

It might also help if we were to try a skype conference call for those interested. WereSpielChequers 15:25, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the general idea, the more effectively we can communicate the day-to-day activities going on here in a way that's friendly to outlets like the Signpost, and make this site approachable by new editors, the better. -Peteforsyth 19:44, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

I have no objection to this, and encourage those who are interested in the categorization as described above to have at it. I think some proposals already are using categories similar to those suggested. As to the skype call, if there's sufficient interest I think we could try it out, but we do weekly IRC meetings already... is there a sufficiently different population to justify the additional time spent to do this? -- Philippe 20:28, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

I have had excellent experiences with meetings conducted over both a voice and a text-chat simultaneously. I haven't yet participated in any of the IRC meetings, so I don't have a sense if that would be disruptive in a negative way. But I'd suggest maybe experimenting with the next IRC chat by having a simultaneous, and optional, Skype call-in. Might it be too chaotic to be useful? Possibly, but it also might be productive in ways we can't even imagine! I suggest it as a one-time experiment, in the spirit of "be bold." -Peteforsyth 20:58, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm certainly open to experimenting with it, but I don't think it's a good idea to shoot for the next one, because it's Tuesday and that's a little quick for us to get the word out, etc. Let me discuss with Eugene and see what the best format for us to support such a thing is... it may be really interesting to do it in a couple of weeks when I'm physically co-located with Eugene... but either way, I think the idea is interesting, especially since IRC meetings have been slightly less chaotic recently. -- Philippe 08:01, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

en:Wikipedia:Wikivoices contains examples of how we've used skype conference calls, sometimes in combination with a chatroom. The audios are typically edited to get rid of ums errs and the general faff of bringing people in and out of the chat, and if you have more than a handfull of people you need a good moderator who can bring people in from the chatroom to the call. WereSpielChequers 16:16, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Code tag display

The code tag seems to make text exceedingly small, like this. The code tag is only supposed to apply a fixed-width typeface, as far as I'm aware, and not affect size. I'm viewing on Firefox 3.5.3/Windows XP, in case this is a browser-specific issue. Equazcion 07:08, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Can you give me some context? Where, for instance, is it being used that it creates a problem? -- Philippe 08:02, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

I noticed it when adding the code tags to the documentation at Template:Impact, and you can see the result there. It could be debated whether or not this actually creates a problem, since the code tags could simply be left out. But fixed-width is the common way to display code on a page, as it aids in copy-paste. Equazcion 08:31, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, I'd guess that one should probably be reported at bugzilla, but I think I'd probably drop into #wikimedia-tech first and find out if it's on purpose for some reason. That one is way beyond the level of being configurable on the local wiki. -- Philippe 08:35, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

ReaderFeedback / Ratings

I'm just beginning to understand the ReaderFeedback extension (thanks for the pointer, Eugene). Have a few thoughts, some of which are developer issues, and some have to do with how this wiki is set up:

• When looking at a proposal, there is a link for "page rating" in the bottom of the left-hand sidebar. This is useful, but I think it's not very easy to find. My own instinct would be to find a link like that in the tab bar, where other page-specific stuff usually lives. Can this be somehow made more apparent to the end-user, that it's possible to find the page ratings?
• When you first submit a rating on a given page, you immediately see an "overview" of ratings for that page. There is also a much more detailed view available, with charts etc., if you click "page rating" in the left-hand nav. I think the end user would be well served if the "overview" page had more prominent links to the detailed "page rating" page, an explanation of where to find that link in the future, and also a link to Special:RatedPages and an instruction on where to find that in the future. This is the moment where the end user is most attuned to the concept of ratings; it's an excellent "teachable moment."
• Within Special:RatedPages, you're able to browse proposals by averages, but not by quantity of feedback. This seems like a very important metric. I think it's important to be able to find proposals that have received a lot or very little feedback (regardless of whether the feedback is high, low, whatever). Would it be possible to add another drop-down menu showing, for instance, pages with <5 priority ratings, 5 to 10 ratings, 10 to 50 ratings, 50 to 500 ratings, etc.?
• In the area where a user submits ratings, it should state whether the information of who-voted-how is recorded, and if so, who has access to that information. On controversial issues especially, secret ballots and open ballots have their strengths and weaknesses, and it's important the end-user should know the terms of his/her participation.

Any thoughts on this? -Peteforsyth 18:54, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

And a detail: the design of the charts could use a slight tweak, that would make it easier to see a straight line running across the top or bottom (e.g., if the running average is 5, or the number of voters is 0). Currently, those lines blend in with the chart borders, giving the impression that they're not there at all; a small design change would make them easier to discern. -Peteforsyth 19:00, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

I like all of these suggestions. I'd also add one, that the overview chart be a little easier to read. A bar graph of [# of votes] to [what they voted for] would be much simpler to view than the current chart with its multitude of digits. I'm not sure how hard or easy that would be to implement, but it would really make things easier. Equazcion 19:07, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

I sent a note to the developer, pointing him in this direction. :) -- Philippe 22:14, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Philippe! I thought of one other thing: it would be cool if each user could click a link that would list every proposal he/she had rated, and the ratings given. -Peteforsyth 18:27, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, that would be a great feature. -- Philippe 19:19, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Also proposals you haven't yet rated, perhaps sorted by number of votes or with topics where you've cast a vote on other proposals listed first. WereSpielChequers 20:04, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Corrupt help link

The "Editing Help" link on edit pages leads to a deleted file.Torsch 09:58, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I recreated the page with a softredirect to w:Help:Editing. HenkvD 11:28, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

This is strange: translation

This task force will also look into wiki-lawyering, policy proliferation, and the picking up or cross-pollination of policies from more mature projects to newer projects and the potential for stifling growth and innovation for these newer projects. This task force will identify potential solutions to simplifying and streamlining policies and examine ways that these could be implemented. I could not understand, I'm just coming here because it is an important page, there were misspellings, and when trying to translate could not. It was strange that writing. Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton 18:11, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Rodrigo, I don't see anything misspelled there? You bolded "stifling", but that's correctly spelled. This is the wiktionary entry. Is there something else there that's wrong? Also, could you please link to the source? I'm not sure which page you're talking about. -- Philippe 18:19, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Google reveals this page: Emerging strategic priorities -Peteforsyth 18:26, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I corrected the error [1], but the meaning, I think is strange, does not mean "choke"? Choke new projects? I do not understand.Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton 19:04, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, the wording could be better. I'll point Serita to this conversation. -- Philippe 19:09, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Rodrigo... Perhaps a better word is impeding or interfering with ... I will make the change on the strategy wiki page. Thanks Serita 17:15, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Those are also hard words to translate. 'slowing' might be appropriate. General guidelines for writing for translation: use simple language, or precise single-meaning words. Keep sentences short and limit subordinate clauses. Use only highly popular idioms. This project is being widely translated, so all pages should bear these issues in mind. Sj 23:34, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Some discussion to be aware of

For those who might care but don't know, there's been a major controversy in the past few days on English Wikipedia. It concerns a couple of admins who supported a friend through becoming an admin, without sharing their knowledge that the friend had evaded a ban by using a sockpuppet account.

The issue has brought about a strong desire to put some thought into how administrators are regarded, what their responsibilities are, and what kind of process is needed to consider a recall if the community loses its faith in their judgment.

It seems that energy is being directed toward w:Wikipedia:WikiProject Administrator. There are plenty of other links too, but I'm hoping that one becomes the best one (skipping past the specifics of the situation, and focusing on moving forward in a general way). Just thought it would be of interest, as it covers similar subject matter of many of our proposals here. -Peteforsyth 06:57, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Regardless of the respectable effort to move forward, I think it would be helpful to offer some context by listing links to the relevant discussions that led to this. Equazcion 07:38, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

May I give the view from my very limited perspective? I think that being aware of and keeping an eye on the issues is valid and important. What I want to work very hard to avoid is allowing this wiki to become a battleground for the same issues, with the same voices, and the same opinions. One of the massive challenges in an organization with an "800 pound gorilla" like the English Wikipedia is how to acknowledge the serious nature of its role, while at the same time not allowing this wiki (and all of the others) to be a place of "reaction" to the english Wikipedia. So while I think it's important to watch the discussion, I don't think its' a good idea to re-hash the issues here. I'm not, by the way, suggesting that anyone (either Pete or Equazcion) was advocating for bringing those disputes here - I'm simply making a proactive statement that I hope no one will. -- Philippe 12:53, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I fully agree with Philippe's characterization of the issue. In that spirit, I'm going to respond to Equazcion's request on his/her talk page, to keep the focus of this discussion where I think it belongs. If anybody else is interested, either look there, or let me know. -Peteforsyth 16:31, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Pete. I wasn't looking to discuss the issue here, but the lone link to the 'result' without seeing what led up to it seemed rather cryptic, and I think people need to see what led to this in order to become interested. The wikiproject page is pretty sparse and not likely to spark much interest. But thanks nevertheless for the link on my talk page, and I hope people look there for it. Equazcion 16:40, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Key questions

Hi folks,
Early in this process, we asked people to define what their Key questions were, and kept it very loose. Now, it's time to see that those key questions get in front of the task forces that will be working on them. Would one or more of you be willing to go through the list at Key questions and make sure that each question is routed to a task force? For instance, if a question should be routed to the task force on Improving Performance in India, you would go to Emerging strategic priorities and find that task force. Below it is a line that says "Note: Key questions that relate to this task force and priority can be found here. You'd just add that question to the list at the target page (the word "here"). Those questions can then be used as conversation starters for the task forces.

Thanks in advance to whomever tackles this! -- Philippe 15:56, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Both key questions and proposals could use assignment to one or more task forces, no? This would go nicely on an Template:Opentasks list. Sj 23:36, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Translation

I don't think that any of these proposals are yet in more than one language, I for example can only read the English ones. Can we have some translations please? WereSpielChequers 16:42, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

There are several that have been translated, but I agree that we're nowhere near critical mass. Attention has been focused on the guiding documents, which I think was a correct resource allocation; absolutely, though, we should focus on proposals as well. -- Philippe 16:47, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

I've been trying to translate the proposal Proposal:Mehr_Fotos,_einfachere_Lizenzierung but Template:Languages expects the main text to be in English, consequently the German version has to be a sub page "<page>/de". Apparently the "move" command has been disabled in this wiki so I cannot move the page. --Fasten (Wikinews: Aktion Deutschland Hilft asks for donations after the earthquake in Indonesia) 17:52, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

No, move exists - it's under the arrow next to the search box in the upper right. :) -- Philippe 17:54, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Readability

Pages like Strengthen the community start with a Table of Contents followed by a first heading. The page also contains big charts, and although big, continue to have small and blurred print, essentially badly readible, and because of their size flooding the surrounding text. Has someone from within the Wikimedia movement taken a look at this page? Dedalus 21:49, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

I took a pass at trying to improve the ToC issue by shrinking the first headline and by right-aligning the table. Thoughts? What would you propose we do with the charts? --Eekim 22:37, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Emerging priorities, task forces, and balance

The more I think about the ESP list the less happy I am with the balance. Software and MediaWiki aren't mentioned once (I just added one mention of the latter), technology gets one brief mention, and building something awesome through the Projects - which is what brought us all here, right? :) - gets very little mention.

Meanwhile we have two separate high-level task forces for china and india, instead of making those sub-TFs of a single? At that granularity we should have a separate TF for improving each of our nine Projects as well.

I split up the third priority, adding an ESP:

   * 3.1 ESP π. Expansion of types of projects supported

For schedule reasons I think we should announce and start some task forces asap, but that might be possible while revising the balance and definition of what we consider core topics and research efforts.

If there's a lot of topic/scope flux I also wonder whether it would be possible to have TFs assigned strongly to a high level Priority and weakly to a specific set of research goals, so that as we (large-group) balance the latter, TFs can refine what issues they cover. Sj 23:40, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I don´t think it is a good idea to change that much now. Especially because there is no work done on these new task forces and phase 2 will start probably next week. Why not move them to Emerging_strategic_priorities#Other_Task_Forces? Goldzahn 21:38, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm not certain that the list of task forces on that page are of equal importance. They certainly are being asked to address topics of different breadth. At any rate, now is the time to suggest ways to balance the set of {priorities, task forces}. I agree that Phase 2 is starting soon and we should proceed with it promptly. That shouldn't keep us from identifying changes that should be made in the near future. And my impression of the "other task forces" section is that it is for those that do not fit into the scheme above it; not for additions or corrections to that scheme. Sj 23:40, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Open tasks list needed

We need a todo list for people who want to help out with the process. Something like w:Template:opentasks, not like the todo list for this wiki. Something linked most prrominently from the main page and main navigation boxes.

• categorizing proposals with suitable task forces
• categorizing task forces
• setting up personal lists of favorite/most important proposals
• setting up personal lists of favorite/most important task forces
• writing a personal vision for Wikimedia in 5 years, linking to Proposals and TFs

• reviewing older visions for Wikimedia's future (meta discussions from '04, foundation-l discussions from '05 and '06)
• reviewing older ideas for Wikimedia projects (meta project proposals page[s])
• reviewing ideas on the Internets about other 'pedias and wiki* projects: what do people want or say they want? ** correlating the above three points with proposals here.

&c. Sj 16:56, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

totally agreed ... I think I mentioned this not too long ago to Sj :) I'd add these items:

• general task-force wikignoming -- adding strat plan report pages and proposals (and key questions) to the appropriate task force pages, for instance. This could presumably be done by anyone, not just people 'officially' on the task force.
• along with reviewing older ideas, there needs to be a push to collect links to appropriate meta pages etc in one place; maybe appropriate task force pages?
• for anyone who knows what's going on re: the strategic planning process -- a better explanation of detailed process (e.g. task forces will do this, then submit reports in x way) would be very helpful to those of us who have volunteered & are wondering what's going on;
• all the overview pages need to be de-jargonified; though these pages have a low-level of jargon compared to most internal strategy documents, it's helpful to remember that many participants are not familiar at all with corporate, non-profit, business, 'strategic planning' terminology (e.g. what is a strategic plan?); and the more jargon one uses, the harder it is for non-native speakers to understand. -- Phoebe 22:45, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

And some practical stuff:

• someone made a great table on the Call_for_proposals page; could be done for the rest of the proposals

• templates are not my strong suit; can someone make one up that's easily editable? -- Phoebe 22:57, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

That table you mention is totally out of date. If it is worth viewing that data, it may be worth adding this as a script or other feature. Sj 23:42, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I think it's interesting (though maybe not crucial?) to have ways of visualizing the data across topic areas, yes. A script is a good idea, though, since obv it changes fast. -- Phoebe 00:12, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I have no idea how to make a script like this, but it would certainly be useful. I would also add the number of votes to the table. -- Ryk V 23:25, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

A to do list on the main page would be a good idea indeed.

It would also be nice if browsing the (innumerable) proposals was made easier:

• by improving the Category:Proposals by subject page (it is incomplete and it seems to me the Call_for_proposals page is much too long to be useful).
• or by creating a new category of proposal for each task-force, making it easier to allocate proposals to task-forces.

Anyway, the addition of a "Browse Proposals" link to the main page or, even better, to the left panel, would be welcome. -- Ryk V 23:25, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

• working on implementing this here. -- Phoebe 20:29, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Very very wrong translations in Korean from many IPs

I cannot understand articles created on strategywiki. I suspect wrong translation is from PauloHelene, because he made wrong/machine translations on MetaWiki and ko:wiki. Also, please note that request for translator right is denied on translatewiki (See betawiki:Project:Translator/Archive/2009/3 Section 126). I am requesting investigation against these abuses. Kwj2772 09:56, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

You might be right, although I cannot judge the quality of the tranlsations. User:PauloHelene is active under several IP's, as can be seen on edits on his userpage. Be noted that he has admin rights on this wiki, especially for translations into Korean, but has not used it so far. HenkvD 10:16, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

As I just said on foundation-l, you are more than welcome to improve any translations on this wiki. :-) -- Philippe 15:13, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Also, I'd like to make one small correction to Henkvd's statement above- Paulo's administrator rights on this wiki are not specific to Korean translations. I do not believe in limited adminship. As with all other administrators, Paulo is a trusted user and is welcome to use the administrator tools in any appropriate situation, not confined to Korean translations. -- Philippe 15:23, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Trusted? What is a definition of trusted? How can be banned user who abused sock puppets and cracked bureaucrat account in ko.wikipedia called trusted? Kwj2772 15:27, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Until today, I was not aware of that situation. I'm going to look into it. Paulo has not done anything to abuse my trust, and banning on one project is not necessarily disqualifying on others: that's pretty well established precedent. I will, however, look into it further. -- Philippe 16:11, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

"improving" requires a lot of time and effort. We don't have enough time/effort to improve the whole contribution in a short time. He is just *vandalising* any random articles, some of critical ones and some of low-priority ones. "We can improve translation without banning someone" is identical to "We can improve Wikipedia without blocking someone". It might work in theory, but not in reality. He started to make a lot of mistranslation legacies on meta several years ago and we can't wipe out the garbages even until now. --Klutzy 15:42, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

You are also welcome to simply start the translations over. I'm not sure what other path there is? The definition of vandalism excludes any good faith contributions, though, and I do not see evidence that Paulo's actions are in bad faith. They may not be of high quality (I am not in a position to judge), but they are not vandalism, to my knowledge. -- Philippe 16:12, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

"simply start the translations"? :( I've translated several meta and mediawiki messages since 2006. However, I gave up to fight against him by "improving" articles. There are limited translators, and even lots of important messages remained untranslated until now. It is not the problem which can be solved by indivisual translators' efforts. (He adds articles by just clicking a "translate" button!) It is continued from last year and we tried the method you said. The result is more garbages at more projects. That's why we are claiming here.

About "good faith" - He did not response about his bad productions at ko.wp. (ko:User_talk:Paulo(Korean link)), until he was blocked at ko.wp, and he is also blocked at ja.wp[2]. What do you think his good faith is? I really don't know. He haven't made a normal reply to (at least) Korean users. --Klutzy 18:26, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

So what would you have us do about the bad translations? If you won't fix them, and don't have the time to re-do them, what shall I do? Simply delete and not have ko? I'd love some ideas. :( -- Philippe 18:32, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

While this is investigated, I have remporarily had Paulo's sysop permissions taken away. -- Philippe 00:39, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Although it was very very long, oppose-man insted of ombudsman continues to block something PauloHelene.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by PauloHelene (talk • contribs)

? Kwj2772 09:51, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Do you mean this blocks? Kwj2772 10:03, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

No. of article page is about 1000? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.137.62.108 (talk • contribs)

Please concentrate in this discussion and do not try to confuse us. I don't know what your comment means exactly. Kwj2772 12:13, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I don't understand the comment either, Paulo. Could you please rephrase it? -- Philippe 16:03, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Actually, to open korean wikimedia site a.s.a.p., it was necessary to translate with speed. drafts may have spelling error. and be partially translated. PauloHelene 03:39, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Updated favorite proposals

Here are the most recent favorite proposals, from Special:RatedPages

Priority: High -

Proposal:A central wiki for interlanguage links (2,848 bytes - 28 reviews)

Proposal:Right to Left support (1,318 bytes - 18 reviews)

Proposal:Easier Editing (1,167 bytes - 25 reviews)

Proposal:A "be bold" campaign (8,230 bytes - 24 reviews)

Proposal:Core topics complete (2,753 bytes - 15 reviews)

Proposal:Multilingual Wiktionary (2,891 bytes - 22 reviews)

Proposal:Make Wikimedia scale (4,775 bytes - 15 reviews)

Proposal:Be nice (914 bytes - 18 reviews)

Proposal:Keep the servers running (2,450 bytes - 45 reviews)

Impact: High -

Proposal:A central wiki for interlanguage links (2,848 bytes - 30 reviews)

Proposal:Peer review by academic institutions (1,039 bytes - 22 reviews)

Proposal:Create a reputation system and require logging-in to edit (6,272 bytes - 24 reviews)

Proposal:WYSIWYG default editor (4,349 bytes - 43 reviews)

Proposal:Go beyond the Wikis (3,091 bytes - 16 reviews)

Proposal:Expert review (2,591 bytes - 25 reviews)

Proposal:Stop using wikis for tasks for which wikis are not suitable (9,790 bytes - 20 reviews)

Proposal:Offline Wikipedia (6,671 bytes - 19 reviews)

Proposal:Multilingual Wiktionary (2,891 bytes - 22 reviews)

Proposal:Less anonymity (2,136 bytes - 23 reviews)

Proposal:More wiki, less politics/power struggle (6,305 bytes - 15 reviews)

Proposal:No more Fair Use (2,037 bytes - 18 reviews)

Proposal:Interlanguage reunification (2,087 bytes - 26 reviews)

Proposal:Easier Editing (1,167 bytes - 25 reviews)

Proposal:Make Commons more accessible to the average visitor (4,869 bytes - 15 reviews)

Proposal:Keep the servers running (2,450 bytes - 43 reviews)

Proposal:Be nice (914 bytes - 18 reviews)

Feasibility: High -

Proposal:Universal User Page (2,578 bytes - 34 reviews)

Proposal:Stay the same (1,146 bytes - 24 reviews)

Proposal:A "be bold" campaign (8,230 bytes - 24 reviews)

Proposal:Inline SVG preference (1,787 bytes - 21 reviews)

Proposal:Universal login eligibility by default (1,310 bytes - 18 reviews)

Proposal:Keep the servers running (2,450 bytes - 43 reviews)

Desirability: High -

Proposal:Board transparency (1,387 bytes - 18 reviews)

Proposal:Keep the servers running (2,450 bytes - 15 reviews)

-- Philippe 03:25, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

The ReaderFeedback tool should really get an automated script driven real-time output...Kozuch 09:57, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree, that would be nice. I'll let the developer know that's on our wish list. -- Philippe 15:13, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

It would be nice to have a page dedicated to agglomerating these results (I don't know what "Special:RatedPages" refers to, but I didn't find any article on this wiki with that title)-- Ryk V 21:12, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Special:RatedPages is the page that lists the results of the readerfeedback extension (the rating doohickey at the bottom of each proposal) - so it's the way to get ratings for proposals. -- Philippe 00:47, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Bugzilla

What about pushing the use of bugzilla a bit?Kozuch 16:37, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I think that any time we can push the use of existing systems or tools, we absolutely should. They are official channels, and that's an opportunity for education. I don't want to see discussion of something closed, though, with "take it to bugzilla", because - let's face it - the bugzilla feature request list is loonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng. If we can look at things from a strategic level and prioritize what we submit, that's fantastic, as far as I'm concerned, and we keep bugzilla from becoming a "place where feature requests go to die." So, sure, push bugzilla. It's a WMF process, and it works, mostly. But let's not close off discussion anywhere because we did push Bugzilla. It might be nice to have a template for "This proposal has been submitted to Bugzilla, and has been assigned bug number XXXXX". -- Philippe 18:05, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I added it to Call for proposals. However, I think Bugzilla is important enough here on Strategy so that we should link it from main page. Kozuch 19:57, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

PS. Can you link the Feature requests list on Bugzilla to here? Kozuch 20:05, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

As it says just under http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Call_for_proposals#New_features basically everything in that section and its several subsections needs to be moved to Bugzilla. 98.210.193.221 21:03, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I could not possibly disagree more. That's a recipe for disaster. If we dump a ton of proposals on bugzilla with no overarching strategy or input from the technical team, we end up with a piecemeal series of bug fixes, rather than a fully strategized design. It's also, as I note above, a good way to turn bugzilla into "the place where feature requests go to die." Plus, you know, some of them might be really bad ideas. Let's send things to bugzilla that are appropriate and well thought out - but let's not dump whole sections of the proposals categories on them. -- Philippe 21:05, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Template:Languages

Template:Languages doesn't locate bars properly on RTL script

Template:Languages has a problem to locate separator properly. Maybe it is due to CSS configuration. May I ask a solution to address this problem? Kwj2772 (msg) 13:43, 13 October 2009 (UTC)