Wikipedia talk:Village pump (WMF)/Archive 2

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RFC: Making WP:VP (WMF) more like WP:AC/N

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Should WP:VP (WMF) be reformatted to make it more like WP:AC/N? –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 16:48, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

Problem

As I mentioned in this thread, very few Wikimedia staff actually feel comfortable posting to this board. It's viewed mostly as a place where volunteers essentially just complain about the WMF rather than actually being a centralized location for the community to get updates from the WMF.

Proposal

I suggested there that we format this board similar to how AC/N structured. Announcements are placed on WP:VPW, and they can be discussed at WT:VPW. For now, we will let both volunteers and staff members make posts at the board, but (I hope) we will eventually move to just letting staff members make posts (though obviously still allowing announcements from volunteers in official positions). Posts will be required to be actual announcements though. If you have an idea for the WMF, then you should be posting to Meta rather than here. That's the idea here.

Survey

• Support. As proposer. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 16:48, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

  My second choice to this proposal is just shutting down this board. Announcements aren't happening here; they're being posted by the WMF to WP:VPM. I don't see how a WMF-noticeboard won't just run into the same problems as this village pump did. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 03:39, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

  Think of it as a move more than anything - that is it's essentially your proposal it just changes it from being a Pump to a Noticeboard. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 04:03, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

• Support. Important stuff from the WMF should be more easily accessible to the masses without disruption; if you'd like to discuss it, make a separate place for it. I would suggest, however, that WMF dealings open to discussion be given "priority queue" to Centralized discussion; we should invite as many constructive opinions as possible in order to reduce claims of "my voice didn't get heard". InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 19:51, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose. In my opinion, the exact same comments would be received in the new format, just everybody would talk on the talk page instead of the main page, effectively moving the board from one location to another without changing much. Also, I'm a little surprised to see an RFC tag. A proposal like this could probably have just been a talk page section. On a brighter note, the vibe of the board has been a bit better the last few months. I'm mainly just using it to post links to important announcements I see on wikimedia-l and on meta. My end goal is to get all important WMF happenings mentioned here, so I can finally take WP:VPM off my watchlist. –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:30, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose, the WMF already has a gazillion of places where they can control the narrative. If discussion is disallowed here, it will just move to a different board that is likely going to be less pleasant. —Kusma (talk) 12:15, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  The suggestion is to separate discussion from announcements. Discussions would happen here on this talk page. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 16:48, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

  It is usually preferable to discuss announcements on a page where these announcements are visible. —Kusma (talk) 18:07, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose Yes, people do use the page to idly bitch about WMF. But I don't see this as a useful change. At worst, it's a honeypot for the idle bitchers, so we can keep them out of the rest of Wikipedia. And WMF staff still can (and does) post announcements. I mean, I get the complaint, but I don't see this as a necessary change, unless WMF is actually asking for it; otherwise I'm fine with the status quo. --Jayron32 18:10, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
• Support In its current state, it's just a bitch-board. I disagree with Jayron's argument; it's not useful to new users who go to that page expecting to find recent announcements or information from the WMF and instead finding general bitching and moaning about how terrible and money-grabbing the Wikimedia Foundation is. It leaves a very poor impression on those who are just here to get information and not to get involved in the latest politics between the users and the owners. --⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 18:28, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

  I also support jc37's option. --⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 20:43, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose in favor of jc37's suggestion below for a new WMF noticeboard. Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:24, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose VP's purpose is not to notify the community about arbitration issues. AC/N is already exists for that purpose. This proposal would turn VP into a place to canvas people as well as making things more confusing by duplicating AC/N. - ForbiddenRocky (talk) 21:41, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

  The point is to make this board like AC/N, but for WMF announcements. Galobtter (talk) 22:02, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

• Well the board clearly isn't working as intended right now, but given that the WMF is under no obligation to post here I don't see how we could turn things around. Maybe it's time to think about shutting it down? —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 00:44, 5 May 2023 (UTC)
• I oppose turning this pump into a noticeboard. I support shutting this board down (per pythoncoder) and/or creating a Wikimedia Foundation Noticeboard. (per jc37). Barkeep49 (talk) 02:17, 5 May 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose. The Village Pump is (relatively) accessible and non-bureaucratic by design. My first thought was a separate noticeboard, and I see that that's been suggested. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 18:56, 5 May 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose and close the board as it's not being used for its intended purpose. Stifle (talk) 14:02, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
• Just shut it down. What rare productive discussions happen there can also happen at other noticeboards. If the WMF want to create a WMF noticeboard, they can; last time someone created one for them, they were equivocal. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 03:22, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

  Well, at the moment Wikipedia:WMF noticeboard just redirects to this page. So I don't think it would be difficult to reverse that. - jc37 09:04, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose It works as is. ~ HAL333 17:58, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

  got it 174.251.241.80 (talk) 18:06, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

• Just shut it down. This VP doesn't serve the purpose it was created to fulfill. It just doesn't. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 21:01, 12 May 2023 (UTC)
• Put the page under discretionary sanctions, and empower and encourage admins to strongly enforce civility rules. I disagree with the proposal as written due to it limiting discussion, but there are issues here that I believe can be resolved through enforcement of civility rules. BilledMammal (talk) 04:28, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose. If this is The Encyclopedia That Anyone Can Edit, then it's the nature of the beast that WMF needs to accept that anyone can find fault. And by listening, they might actually learn to do things better. If anyone here violates the WP:NPA policy, then sanction them accordingly. Otherwise, leave it as is. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:00, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

Discussion

• Would foundation staff use this board if formatted this way? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:54, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

  Good question. If they appear at all, announcements tend to arrive on WP:VPM; I've created several new sections in WP:VPW which simply linked to such announcements on other pages. Certes (talk) 10:50, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

• I'd probably support this if there was support from some WMF staffer. This would make it easier to see actual announcements. Galobtter (talk) 01:51, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
• The biggest recent anti-WMF toned page that comes to mind is the Vector 22 revert RFC at WP:V22RFC2, and that was not hosted on this board.

Is this board still some big problem that needs to be solved? Skimming the threads, I have to go back 20 talk page sections and 4 months to find any where anti-WMF tone was used: Wikipedia:Village pump (WMF)/Archive 6#Saudi_Arabia_arrests_two_Wikipedia_adminstors (although maybe I missed one?). Is it possible that things have simmered down since a few years ago when the WMF got alienated from this board? Is there still a big problem here to solve, or are we perhaps operating on some old assumptions? –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:23, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

A broken-down car in a ditch by the side of the road might not be an imminent problem in that it doesn't impede traffic, it's not immediately threatening pedestrians or drivers, and it's not causing property damage. But it's still an eye-sore, not serving any purpose, and a reminder that an accident had taken place. I think the same principle applies here with VPWMF. We probably are not causing any direct harm by keeping it around, but it seems to no longer have a purpose in that the WMF is not actively seeking it out as a vector to provide announcements to the community, nor are they really desirous into getting in any running battles with their usual critics (and I don't blame them). ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 12:31, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

• Should we have a formal proposal to shut this village pump down? We're already having a T:CENT-advertized discussion here. We might as well make sure a consensus can be reached for whatever solution has the most support.
  I don't know if WaltClipper or jc37 want to create a new subsection where people can formally weigh in on the noticeboard idea. There seems to be competing visions for what that would look like in practice (ie. something to replace this board with a la what Barkeep49 suggested to me or maybe something used in addition to this board as WaltCip said below). –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 16:38, 13 May 2023 (UTC)

  I don't think we need to worry about the details of what the noticeboard should look like. That's a separate discussion.

  There are several ways to do this.

  I think the easiest could be just to start a WP:RM, and move this page (and it's archives) to Wikipedia:WMF noticeboard. If successful, we can add a talk page note explaining that from date A to date B, this was a VP, til it was repurposed. That way the history / notices are more easily searchable by anyone who might be interested.

  The other option is just to deprecate this page and matk it historical. But I don't think that that would be as helpful to navigation for anyone looking to research past notices. - jc37 19:56, 13 May 2023 (UTC)

• I see the problem with WP:WMF is this: Foundation staff don't respond to posts there & as a result it becomes a bitch board; because it is a bitch board, Foundation staff are intimidated & don't respond to posts there. (A few months back I had an in-person meeting with some WMF employees, & one commented that he was surprised at just how reasonable were the volunteers he met with about needed changes with the New Pages Patrol!) It's a vicious circle, one that won't be broken unless -- IMHO -- people at the WMF accept that they will be flamed at first & take the time to listen & respond to what gets posted there. And I'm putting the burden on them, not on unreasonable people on the volunteer side, because I believe once staff start participating, people on our side will stop the flaming. We could actually help them do their jobs better, if they would only listen. -- llywrch (talk) 18:43, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

  I think you need to look at the history of this board. The foundation did take the first steps you asked for and got the predictably bad response. After this happened several times they decided, reasonably in my view, that it was no longer worth it when they didn't get flamed at other Village Pumps and started acting accordingly. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:56, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

Noticeboard

This is the Village Pump - a gathering space to talk about a topic. Even if individuals from the WMF are choosing to not engage here, this is a place for said discussion.

For what this proposal is suggesting, just create a new page -WMF noticeboard, or some such. - jc37 18:37, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

I'd be okay with that as well, and then using VPWMF as a tunnel for discussing what has been posted on the WMF noticeboard. ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 19:08, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Uncivil comment removed

Earlier today, a new user asked if there was a way to comply with the request of the family of a recently deceased colleague to make a donation in lieu of flowers and note that the gift was being given in honor of that person. Chris troutman saw fit to respond with a heartless and obnoxious comment and turn that user's innocent question into anti-WMF invective. That was totally out of line and I have removed the comment as a violation of WP:CIVIL. I see that Chris has voted to oppose the Behavioral guidelines for VPW being discussed in the thread above. If there was ever a poster-child example of why such a guideline is needed, this example is it. RoySmith (talk) 16:32, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

We often get new editors who ask on a talk page how to create an article about their business, or their friend, or whatever. RoySmith perhaps prefers we just point the to WP:FIRST and leave it alone, which is foolish. Instead, I tell these new editors about WP:COI, WP:AUTO, or WP:N. The problem is presented, so solve the problem. Anyone interested in donating money should read WP:CANCER. RoySmith, like many admins, feels empowered to refactor comments they don't like. And yes, I am opposed to "behavioral guidelines." I don't believe in controlled opposition or pro forma criticism. Chris Troutman (talk) 16:47, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

The editors comment wasn't asking about creating "an article about their business, or their friend, or whatever". They were asking something about the donation process, certainly something we can't help them with. But directing a bereaved editor to WP:CANCER was not an act of criticism. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 20:02, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

No doubt you have a lot of talents but social interaction is not among them. Please leave commentary about the evils of the WMF for another time. Johnuniq (talk) 22:09, 26 October 2023 (UTC)