User talk:Brya

Welcome to the Wikimedia Foundation's strategic planning process. We appreciate your interest in taking part. You can start by reading our Community guidelines. Check out the links on the Main Page and find an area that interests you. Please feel free to ask me any questions, or you may leave a message on the Village pump.

-- Philippe 05:42, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Cat work today

Brya,

I wanted to drop you a note and say thanks for all the work you've put in today. It really is critical to making the wiki run, and I appreciate it very much. Please accept my thanks on behalf of the Foundation and on behalf of all the community of this wiki. -- Philippe 06:18, 31 August 2009 (UTC), Facilitator, Strategic Plan, Wikimedia Foundation[reply]

Thank you. It is good to be appreciated! I have marked quite a few pages with "delete" and I feel it would help if these were indeed deleted fairly quickly as these just create an atmosphere of untidyness, without contributing anything. - Brya 06:23, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Re-cat questions

Reliable sources

I was surprised to see this proposal moved into a supercategory while you were removing it from another category. Would you please explain your reasoning there? I'm pretty sure it must be a mistake, so I'm going to revert it, and try to re-structure the template TOC to reflect more of the original distinctions of ways to improve content. 76.254.71.129 17:17, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it looks pretty obvious to me. The category is dealing with ways to introduce peer review into Wikipedia, trying to involve outside experts, and trying to get them to review Wikipedia. The proposal is encouraging Wikipedia users to go out and get into the literature for themselves. That is pretty much the exact opposite. Brya 17:25, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You think that helping people to rely on the peer-reviewed literature isn't a proposal to improve content related to peer review? Would you please use the HotCat facility, so your categorizations are more transparent in recent changes? 76.254.71.129 17:32, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No, encouraging Wikipedia users to go into the literature themselves (be it peer-reviewed or otherwise) is the opposite of involving outsiders to review Wikipedia. I see no connection whatsoever. - Brya 18:18, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I guess it depends on whether encouraging existing and new editors to use the peer-reviewed secondary literature result in more peer-reviewed content summarization, and content disputes resolved in favor of the peer-reviewed position. Is there any evidence that it won't? 76.254.71.129 18:25, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actually no. It does not matter what literature they use. There are plenty of unreviewed books that are equally valuable as peer-reviewed literature. There is no such thing as "the peer-reviewed position". For a given topic you could likely find any number of peer-reviewed publications which are taking opposite positions from each other. Going outside and throwing a stone in the nearest pond is equally likely to promote peer review of Wikipedia as this proposal. If you happen to know the right pond propably more likely. - Brya 18:37, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What evidence do you have in support of this position, that the secondary peer-reviewed literature should not be considered the most reliable of all sources? 76.254.71.129 19:08, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What a weird question. Where is this coming from? I am afraid I don't see any point in holding the religious debate you propose. - Brya 07:02, 1 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is coming from a desire to improve accuracy. Do you believe that some sources are more reliable than the secondary peer-reviewed literature? If so, is there any evidence for that belief? If so, what is that evidence? 208.54.4.54 15:56, 3 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Financial motivation for assessment content

Another question: is assessment content not wider coverage? 76.254.71.129 17:44, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Looks pretty neutral to me in respect to wider or narrower coverage (more probably narrower coverage?). Besides that, it is overcategorised as it is. I would welcome a suggestion to delete a category from this proposal. - Brya 18:18, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Given that there is very little assessment content in Wikimedia projects, why would you think that adding more would result in content narrowing? 76.254.71.129 18:25, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, well, I am not categorizing by the title of the proposal. There is not necessarily any relationship between the title and the content of the proposal. I am categorizing by content. This is a proposal with a financial motivation (hence more likely to lead to narrower coverage than to wider coverage). - Brya 18:29, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder why you think it has a financial motivation? Because it includes a potential source of funding? 76.254.71.129 18:33, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think that because it says so and because it is entirely built upon that. - Brya 18:40, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It says so where? The MediaWiki Quiz extension was developed two years ago for Wikiversity, before that National Science Foundation grant was announced. 76.254.71.129 19:06, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It say so in the Summary "Use ... to meet the UK charitable status criterion." followed a little further on by "the UK Chapter's tax appeal)". - Brya 07:08, 1 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I understand now. Thank you for explaining your position so clearly. The financial motivation is one of many for including assessment content, but development of the MediaWiki Quiz extension pre-dates the UK charity decision by two years too. 208.54.4.54 15:56, 3 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Proposals

Also, regarding removing proposals from Category:Proposals -- I have no opinion on the matter, but I wonder whether you intend to do that to all of them? 76.254.71.129 18:35, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose. Very much duplicate. - Brya 18:40, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Okay. 76.254.71.129 19:06, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The template contains both main category and subcategory (it can be usuful to have a central unique list of all proposals). Please respect the category system of ths wiki. Nemo 20:34, 2 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's fine with me, too. I'm more worried about corruption of accuracy by those (perhaps the religious?) who don't have any evidence for their position. 208.54.4.54 15:56, 3 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No no no no...! Proposals should absolutely remain in Category:Proposals. We have tools built around that... 17:48, -- Philippe 17:51, 3 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oh well, then you should probably have given the category a different name ... ? - Brya 17:06, 4 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see why. It is just a convention of most of our projects to put pages only in the most specific category of a tree. You can also have a tree of categories and decide to put a page in both the most generic and the most specific one. Nemo 17:23, 4 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It is a pretty wide-spread convention, so you can assume that it will be followed here as well, unless you take counter-measures. - Brya 17:28, 4 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The local convention has been followed by all users except you. ~~Why this? Proposals which are not in a subcategory by subject are in fact uncategorized.~~ Nemo 20:16, 4 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, I suppose we should delete more, or it will be difficult to find useful proposals. You're right, I'm going to change the category description and use. Nemo 21:03, 4 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it looks to me that deleting the really empty proposals would help; this would provide some clarity and make the almost-empty proposals stand out. Thus perhaps some of the latter could still be saved. I understand the sentiment against deleting any proposal, but you can overdo anything .... - Brya 07:29, 6 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Geology question

Do you believe the Earth is less than four billion years old? 99.35.129.22 19:24, 3 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Same answer as above. - Brya 17:04, 4 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal:Extend_editors'_identity_creation

Hi, I just saw your note on Proposal:Extend_editors'_identity_creation. I tried to clarify the context and to be more concrete about possible uses of the proposed model. If it's still unclear to you, feel free to re-add the cleanup note. In case you do that, it would be great if you could ask a more specific question so I know which aspects I need to clarify. --Hyrsebrigh 03:53, 8 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, thank you for this note, and for your effort in clarification. Nevertheless, I am still mystified as to the purpose of the proposal. Is this a model that Wikiversity or an outside University could use when studying Wikipedia? Is this an additional feature to be incorporated into Wikipedia to indicate reliability of articles, and if so what form should this take? Or is it to be part of the instrumentation that the ArbCom has in tracking malfeasants? I feel it is extremely vague when it comes to the change in structure that is actually being proposed (it sounds more like a concept without direct practical application). - Brya 10:48, 8 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The overall purpose is improving quality and transparency. Did you check out the Examples section I just added? The proposal has many possible "purposes" (I'd rather call them "uses" or "effects", as they're highly emergent by nature). First, it's about making any kind of user relationship visible, so that it might improve transparency and encourage editors to build some kind of perceivable identity (if applied in the right way). People could form groups, express their (dis)trust of others, or provide references of their qualification and interests. Of course, all this can also be badly abused if certain aspects get overrated.

Then, it's also very much about evaluation and research. The data model that's introduced will allow a whole new range of insights into the processes which constitute a wiki.

What I'm proposing will in practice be a set of extensions to the mediawiki software. I haven't looked at the code yet, so I don't know where to interface, but what we'll need is a data abstraction for modeling user relations, as well as some methods for extracting structural information from actions like editing an article, commenting on the discussions page, and so on.

I don't know what the ArbCom is, but I think the software extensions that I'm proposing could be used for all of the purposes you mentioned above. After all, that's what writing software is about: Creating a concise framework that allows for a maximum versatility of applications.

If you have any more questions, please ask, because I really feel that this is a very important direction to look into. Big thanks for your interest so far. --Hyrsebrigh 21:53, 8 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but that is the problem: it is a concept only. As a concept or model it may be very worthy, but it is in the practical applications that it should prove its worth. This Call for Proposals attempts to solicit ideas for changes in actually existing structures, suggestions that can be implemented. Your proposal is missing this aspect, which means it is somewhat in the category "if the sky were painted orange everybody would be happier". The proposal is very vague, in its practical aspects, that is, as a proposal. I would like to encourage you to expand on how it is to be implemented? - Brya 10:42, 9 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wiktionary, interwikis

I'd be very interested in any examples you may have of "extreme degree of PoV-editing" on Wiktionary.

For linking to Wiktionary within any wikimedia project, one uses a form of interwiki link: [[wikt:en:word|Word]] creates the link to Word on the English wiktionary. (There are also some non-wikimedia interwikis as well, such as MeatballWiki - see MeatballForWikipedians for help in that community.) - Amgine 04:06, 22 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As to examples, I am pretty much on the record: there are any number of names of taxa that are explained as only what a few users feel they should be, completely ignoring what they are in reality. Any neutral phrasing at Wiktionary is attacked immediately.

And yes you can make links between projects, but it is rather circuitous, and it gets old fast. - Brya 12:46, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If you can point me to any previous discussion regarding this on Wiktionary I would greatly appreciate it. - Amgine 14:43, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, found it. - Amgine 15:22, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, great stuff there. Note the admin who blocked me because he disagreed with me, using a misquote from something I said as his sole source for what he wanted to include. Later he applied as an admin at Wikipedia and (in response to a question) claimed he would never use his admin powers in case of a disagreement on content. Some persons are really devoted liars. - Brya 16:45, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Distribute Infrastructure is a sub-proposal of Distributed Wikipedia proposal

hi Byra, i noticed this:

"# (cur) (prev) 11:52, 31 August 2009 Brya (Talk | contribs) (3,263 bytes) (don't merge; very different proposals) (undo) "

that's incorrect. if you look closely, the motivations, aims and goals of the Distribute Infrastructure proposal a subset of the Distributed Wikipedia proposal. Lkcl 17:05, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, they look very different to me. The infrastructure proposal appears to be a technical approach to split off part of the load from the central servers, by involving other parts of the network. Exactly what is in Proposal:Distributed Wikipedia is something of a mystery but clearly it involves altering the content of Wikipedia, and is not limited to technical aspects. - Brya 05:19, 4 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Be More Inclusive and Friendly to Newbies

Hi you made a comment on the talk page of this proposal Proposal:Be_More_Inclusive_and_Friendly_to_Newbies

"This is a sentiment that is also present in other proposals."

Could you help me find those other similar proposals. I think it would be good to link them together.

Gene McKenna 10/1/2009

You have seen the proposals in category Category:Proposals for volunteer support? - Brya 05:04, 4 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Next Steps

	Next steps!
	It's time to answer some questions! Would you check out the list of questions that were submitted by the community and others and try to answer some? -- Philippe 01:24, 22 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

LQT

I note your post about LiquidThreads on your user page. Have you communicated your issues with it to the designer? ~Philippe 06:29, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No, it looks safe to say that this would be pointless. - Brya 05:10, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Next steps (again)

Hi Brya,

Thanks for all of your contributions to the strategy wiki to date! The strategic planning process wouldn't be where it is today without all of your help. Your early and frequent support was invaluable, and I want you to know how much of a difference that you made. I hope you'll continue to work towards finishing the plan... I know you had difficulties with LiquidThreads, but we're a couple of iterations down the road now and I think most people have found the software a much easier adjustment now.

We're about to move into the third and final phase of the process, and in many ways, this will be the most challenging. I'm hoping you will continue to be an active presence in shaping the movement's five year strategic plan.

Here are some concrete suggestions as to how you can help moving forward:

Add your name to Strategic Planning:Hosts. This just formalizes what I think has been true all along; that you care about this process, and that you're doing what you can to help it along moving forward.
Help organize and improve this wiki! Starting next week (January 18, 2010), we're going to be encouraging many more people to come participate, and we want to make sure this wiki is as presentable as possible. A comprehensive list of things to do is at Strategic Planning:To-do list.
Invite people to participate! Encourage volunteers to discuss Task force/Recommendations.
Finally, we need to clearly describe what this final phase is going to look like. In particular, we could use feedback and discussion on Strategic Planning:Decision-Making.

Let me know what you think! Many, many thanks! ~Philippe 00:59, 12 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]