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Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 111

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Latest comment: 10 years ago by C678 in topic Edit Counter Optin
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Including edit summaries in a view of a multiple edit diff

Latest comment: 10 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

This proposal has to do with the visibility of edit summaries in a diff. As far as I know, it is not possible to view all edit summaries when viewing multiple consecutive edits. Only the first and last summaries are included at the top of each column. That is sometimes inconvenient, since many times an edit summary has significant content. If it was possible to include the summaries, perhaps in the body of the right-hand column (inconvenient in many cases) or in its own column (as an option that replaces the left-side column?) or appearing over a selection by moving the mouse over that part of the text (best but hardest to implement), I think it would be very useful in understanding other editors' changes. --Ring Cinema (talk) 14:54, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Latest comment: 10 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Please comment at Template talk:Location map Israel#RfC: Change of images in Location map Israel and related templates. Jackmcbarn (talk) 18:40, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Create a MediaWiki:DebugInfo.js

Latest comment: 10 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

This javascript interface could be very useful for submitting a debug info to gadgets developer pages. Some scripts like wikEd have this thing already bundled, but for others this would be very necessary, instead of implementing it directly to script. Developer could create a button/link for easy debug info by using the &withJS param (example: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article&withJS=MediaWiki:DebugInfo.js) It should print the following things:

Sample debug info


Thoughts? --Rezonansowy (talk | contribs) 10:40, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Orphan article

Latest comment: 10 years ago7 comments6 people in discussion

They best way I can think of for reducing the number of orphan articles is to have a robot that tracks down all orphan articles, even if they don't have the orphan template and then finds all articles that contain text exactly like the title of the article and turns the first place that text appears into a link to that article. It might not work for all orphan articles because some topics like possibly Registry Dr. might not be mentioned in any other article at all. For that reason, administrators should be able to decide what phrase is very similar to the title of the article and get the robot to also search for occurrences of the phrase 'doctor virus' in the main article name space. Blackbombchu (talk) 21:10, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

There would be way too many false positives, and for admins to pick phrases for the bot would be just as much work as if admins de-orphaned all the articles themselves. Jackmcbarn (talk) 22:48, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
In that case, if it's technically possible on very new browsers, then maybe the orphan template should be built into the source code and for those people using one of the newest browsers, they should automatically see the orphan template without {{orphan}} appearing in the edit page when no articles in the main article namespace link to that article, and that template should automatically disappear without a change to the edit page or a page getting added to the article history when a link to it from main article namespace gets added. To make this possible, there should either be administrative actions of marking an not being in main article name space when it's a disambiguation page but for other pages like project pages, tea house archives, and redirects, it should be possible for the process of not being treated like a Wikipedia article to happen automatically. Blackbombchu (talk) 23:39, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
I think this might be more appropriate on the idea lab than the proposals village pump. Novusuna talk 23:52, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
Agree with Novusuna. GenQuest "Talk to Me" 02:10, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
Right... I note that if the original post was an orphan article, this could be converted to "The best way I can think...". We have a lot of articles. Granted, those links are redirects or disambigs or capitalized differently, which could be controlled out. But still... sounds hard. Herostratus (talk) 04:05, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
Have you considered putting in a bot request that would send those suggestions to article creators so they can be added manually. VanIsaacWScont 06:06, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Completing works in progress for User:Cindamuse

Latest comment: 10 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion

Dear friends,

Like many editors, User:Cindamuse had a collection of drafts, works in progress in userspace or draft space that she wished to eventually get in shape to move into the encyclopedia. These are listed at User:Cindamuse/Workshop. I am sure that any one of us would hope that our untimely passing would not result in such work going to waste, so let's get these drafts finished and moved into our encyclopedia.

Cheers! bd2412 T 00:46, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

@BD2412: This showcases the folly of using userspace drafts; if you haven't noticed that, much of her work would be forgotten and wasted. We should move all of those entries to mainspace immediately. The few I checked looked liked passable stubs or higher without any need for immediate copyediting. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 07:46, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
I've been WP:BOLD and moved articles that were not already in mainspace there. There is still material that she had designated for addition to already existing articles that will take more editorial discretion than I am capable of at this time of night. VanIsaacWScont 08:43, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
Thanks. Cheers! bd2412 T 17:50, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Improving references for readability

Latest comment: 10 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

I'm a user experience designer working at the foundation, and as a side project I've been exploring ideas to improve the way references are displayed. I'm building on the reference tooltips gadget and thinking of features that would make the tooltips more useful to readers. There's a mediawiki page here. It would be great to get feedback on these sections: how we use references, and the design proposals. KHammerstein (WMF) (talk) 01:02, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Like

Latest comment: 10 years ago19 comments14 people in discussion
WP:SNOW --Mdann52talk to me! 12:39, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

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.

Proposing the addition of a "like" button as in the social media world. In that regards, one should be able to "like" a post (or edit), especially in back page discussions.Lihaas (talk) 06:26, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Well its like a discussion for deletion, etc that one lends suipport to instead of writing "per X"Lihaas (talk) 13:50, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
"Per X" isn't bad if used correctly. Let's say I'm in an AfD for some article and I want to !vote Delete. If User:Example has listed the six policies and guidelines I want to cite, it's not really a big deal to put "per Example" rather than "per WP:GNG, WP:NBAND, WP:SOAP,...". The problem's with people who don't think and just go "Okay, Example's argument sounds good, let's just go with that", but condemning all "per" arguments because of that isn't the way to go. Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 14:06, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
Lihaas, it sounds like what you want is for everyone else to know that you {{like}} the post, rather than just the person who wrote it. I don't really like this idea myself, but even if I did, I'm not sure how it could be displayed usefully. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:48, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
I think it could be highly relevant when determining a consensus via otherwise silent parties. There are plenty of people who read discussions but don't contribute. There have been times I've not bothered entering a discussion because it appears the result will be favourable to my desired outcome. On that basis, I would say it should be proposed as a "Support"/"Oppose" function. SFB 20:07, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
Workflows involving Support/Oppose !votes should become much easier to contribute to once Flow has grown up. I think we should wait with designing any new features in that area until the new framework is done. — HHHIPPO 20:31, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Strongly oppose. Please, please, don't turn Wikipedia into Facebook. It is not appropriate to have automated edits for weighing in on proposals. These are not votes; each person who supports or opposes a proposal is supposed to give the reasons for his or her opinion, and the result is not counted, but rather the arguments are weighed. If an editor doesn't care enough to type one sentence, or hasn't thought out the reasons behind his or her opinion, then silence is the best policy. This idea, however, is not as objectionable as the "thank" button, because at least it is a public affirmation, unlike "thank", a behind-the-back one, through which editors can privately encourage behaviour which they wouldn't publicly endorse. —Anne Delong (talk) 02:51, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Strongly oppose, per Anne Delong's "These are not votes; each person who supports or opposes a proposal is supposed to give the reasons for his or her opinion, and the result is not counted, but rather the arguments are weighed". It's bad enough when some editors think that issue decisions are made by election (vote-counting). It would be even worse if they devolved into a popularity contest. Sounds anti-social to me, a contrivance to diminish thoughtfulness in discussions. Evensteven (talk) 03:07, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
Do you not see the irony in that your response is merely a support of what Anne Delong said without developing the argument further? By the same logic, "per editor X" statements do not have value. It is obvious that discussions do take into account the volume of support for one user's argument. I've never seen a discussion resolved in favour of one user's well-argued point if there is a mass of less-well-argued opposition. SFB 12:49, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
I see nothing wrong myself in the "per" arguments if another person has the same reason(s) for supporting or opposing a proposal that you do. I would not like to see lot of people clicking a button that just adds "Support" or "Oppose" without reasons, and if they have to make another edit to add reasons there is no time savings. Also, by restating an argument in your words you not only show that you understood it, but you may help make it clear to someone else. I also don't think "like" should have anything to do with proposals. There are many proposals and arguments that I like, but they don't follow Wikipedia's policies, so I can't support them. —Anne Delong (talk) 00:10, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
And I see nothing wrong in "per" references either. In addition, I was not entirely in agreement with everything she said, but in the point that I quoted, was fully affirmative. I see no irony whatever in taking whatever starting place to make my point as I choose to. I do see silliness in the suggestion there's something wrong with that. Furthermore, what's wrong with the "like" button is that (1) it encourages people to think more about what they feel about something and then (2) to express a feeling. The point of a discussion is to weigh and consider, use logic where appropriate, use intuition where appropriate, express values where appropriate, and with all of those things, generally present reasons and perspectives. The button would not only fail to contribute to that, but it would serve to distract from the whole point of having a discussion. So the button goes way beyond silliness; it's egregious. I believe I made that point earlier also, and went somewhat beyond Anne Delong in doing so. Ironic that you didn't notice. Evensteven (talk) 19:00, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose. If I am making an edit or comment on Wikipedia, which I believe is for the betterment of the encyclopedia, then I shouldn't care if ANYBODY likes it or not. It is what I believe. Period. End of story. If, however, I may want to generate a "good-old-boy," "you scratch my back - I'll scratch yours," mentality with others through sycophancy, then I just might welcome such a button, just as is found on social media. No thanks. GenQuest "Talk to Me" 18:20, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
  •   Dislike . I think this will only distract from the arguments made in a discussion or the quality of an edit rather than simplify the overall process of Wikipedia. De728631 (talk) 18:39, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose per above, To put it bluntly I'm not going give a toss whether someone likes my post/edit, "Thanks" is appreciated & is enough, As above have said this is Wikipedia ... Not Facebook. -→Davey2010→→Talk to me!→ 19:20, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose My sentiments are pretty much the same as those expressed immediately above by Davey2010, except that had I not been able to point to his response, I would have probably written an explanation with more bite to it. Sven Manguard Wha? 02:20, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Strong Oppose per Davey2010. I am here to improve Wikipedia not to be liked.--Charles (talk) 08:54, 24 April 2014 (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.

Keeping additional information helpful for extracting data (e.g. from list) within Wiki articles

Latest comment: 10 years ago5 comments3 people in discussion
Note, I fished this out of the archive. It was removed after only 5 hours by a bot: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28proposals%29&offset=20140402201928&limit=500&action=history SebastianHellmann (talk) 08:30, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Hi all, we are currently thinking about parsing lists and tables within Wikipedia to extract the information. Well it turns out that this is a really difficult task. The only feasible solution seems to be to keep some extra information, e.g. in List_of_Nazi_concentration_camps column one is the "name as article URL", 5th column is a date range, 6th column is a number signifying "estimated total number of prisoners during the complete in use time (5th column)". What do you think is the best place to keep such information? Maybe a subpage List_of_Nazi_concentration_camps/data ? or an invisible template/comment? What do you think? This could be a GSoC project for DBpedia [1] SebastianHellmann (talk) 15:08, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

ah yes, before I forget. this is the current state. Here is the query that gets geocordinates of all concentration camps [2] . Auschwitz is missing. With the additional information we could improve the results of the DBpedia database a lot in terms of precision and coverage SebastianHellmann (talk) 15:14, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
Nope; the previous discussion was up for eight days. Graham87 08:43, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
Um: Wikidata, [3]. (really wondering if this is some joke question... ^^) --Atlasowa (talk) 08:21, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
Latest comment: 10 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

If a page has no interwiki links, adding one is simple: we click "add link", a nice and friendly box pops up, we define a project code and article's name, and it's done. If, however it has interwiki link, the "add link" friendly feature is gone; instead the "edit links" option is available, taking the user to a much less friendly page on Wikidata. I would like to propose that the "add link" functionality is retained for all instances where "edit links" is available. Let Wikidata-savvy editors go there, but let most of us use the friendly "add link" option. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 07:44, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

I agree – both add and edit options should be available. SFB 06:42, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Expand the length of the watchlist

Latest comment: 10 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion
  Resolved

The current watchlist system has a limit of 1000 entries. If I watch several popular pages this eats into this limit very quickly.

I propose either raising this limit to as high as the system will tolerate without timing out or killing performance, or if that is not practical, having a "start at" field that would show up to 1000 entries going backwards from the user-entered date and time.

I am not asking for the 30-days-ago-from-now limit to be removed: If I want "1000 entries starting at March 28, 2014" (almost 30 days ago) I will probably get a lot less than 1000 entries. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 03:05, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

The published limit is 1000. At Preferences → Watchlist, try setting "Maximum number of changes to show in watchlist:" to zero - if I do that, and I also set "Days to show in watchlist:" to zero, and watchlist a few high-traffic pages, I've managed to get about 5700 entries. These go back to 27 March 2014, because it won't look back more than 30 days from the present moment, and you can't set a different start point. --Redrose64 (talk) 08:53, 26 April 2014 (UTC)
Thanks. Setting the edits to 0 did what I needed. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 22:54, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Edit notice suggestion

Latest comment: 10 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion

Maybe I'm missing something really obvious here, but should we have an edit notice (maybe for IPs/new users?) that gives some info on basic guidelines (eg use the sandbox for tests)? George8211 // Give a trout a home! 19:43, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Do you mean this? --NaBUru38 (talk) 01:43, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
MediaWiki:editpage-head-copy-warn is about as close as it gets for the absolute essential cut'n'dried: copyvios and basic verifiability. Even some of the no-brainers to us (e.g., WP:NPOV, the main body of WP:V, WP:RS, and all sorts of others) are actually extremely complex, which is part of the idea behind WP:CREEP and WP:IAR—people can get to editing immediately without obligation of knowing all of our policies and all of our guidelines (one of which actually is, of course, that it's not a bureaucracy). This is also why we don't have "Rules and regulations" (or similar) on the left navbar, either. --slakr\ talk / 02:44, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
@NaBUru38: @Slakr: those seem to be good enough for now. George8211 // Give a trout a home! 12:10, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Nelly Furtado and the Portuguese-Canadian debacle

Latest comment: 10 years ago6 comments4 people in discussion
wrong venue. WP:DRN is thataway. --Mdann52talk to me! 12:53, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

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.

Dear Editors. How long are we going to allow one editor to bully an entire community for years on end, each time presenting reasons that keep changing and each time his/ her demands are met, the gaolposts merely get pushed back? Are we going to have the Nelly Furtado page in permanent lockdown? The project policy is clear and the policy should he held above all personal sentiments. At first there were 3 or 4 editors involved, now there is only one left.

  • Colleagues, this is what the policy says: "Ethnicity or sexuality should not generally be emphasized in the opening unless it is relevant to the subject's notability. That specific wording was added "per what seems to be consensus on talk" and has been in place since 23 July 2006, long before the editor has been mis-using it to remove mentions of "Portuguese" in the lead.

In my book, being the poster girl for Portugal during the UEFA Euro 2004 held in Portugal, with her singing - in Portuguese - the official song for Portugal, is very much relevant to the subject's notability."

  • Said editor is demanding proof of 'citizenship': "old, old dispute. No reference has ever been found demonstrating Portuguese *citizenship* as opposed to *ethnicity*". This is about ethnicity, not citizenship, this is a deliberate misrepresentation of the policy.
  • When proof was presented, he claimed that he wanted a document issued by the Canadian Government confirming that Nelly had dual citizenship: "until you show Canadian government documentation specifically respecting a Portuguese citizenship claim by Furtado, it should stay "Canadian" in the lead.—Kww(talk) 14:06, 31 March 2010"
  • The editor has removed mention in the lead of her being Portuguese at least 22 times, going as far back as 29 November 2008 - five and a half years!
  • Over the years countles editors have presented primary sources, but each time these are rejected on some technicality. Such sources include the BBC, the Sunday Times,
  • Enough is enough. This is embarassing for us as a community constructing a knowledge base, It dimishes us, it reflects badly on the project.
  • Policies aside, how much skin off anyone's nose is it really if the page says "Portuguese-Canadian" instead of just "Canadian"?
  • It is really worth the hours of admin work, admin requests, protection orders, etc? Do we as project community stand to gain anything from this? There are hundreds of pages with mention of dual nationality/ ethnicity/ race, call it what you want, that nobody cares less about. I personally years ago pointed out about 20 or so that I found with little effort. Result, the then "Furtado is not Potruguese" squad quickly removed the offending mentions.
  • If it is going to stay "Canadian" only, then please put up advisory on the edit page warning editors and IPs to not add "Portuguese". I have seen similar advisories, so if we have the means to do so, why are we protracting this silly impase forever? *This is a personal crusade by the editor in question, he or she has basically said as much in some of the edit summaries and talk page discussions. The excuses for not allowing "Portuguese-Canadian" keep changing to the point that the whole thing is just plain ridiculous. At one point the editor simply claimed "I will never allow it". On a different occasion, he/ she has also stated that he/ she will accept nothing short of Nelly herself saying she is Portuguese. Does that count? I thought that was original research! And so it is, because years earlier, the same editor said that even if Nelly herself said she was Portuguese he/ she would not accept it, as she is not a neutral source! This has become a joke!
  • To illustrate how far said editor will go, he/ she removed mention of a Portuguese merit order conferred on her by the Portuguese head of State, claiming that it was "inappropriate for lead". "Inappropriate" according to what? Is there a policy on this?
  • The information had been added by an editor responding to a request on the talk page, as the page was/ is protected.
  • So, where do orders of merit go?. Everybody else has their merit titles right after the name, some even on thie photo. I can think of no reason that this editor has to remove it other than to strengthen his/ her personal crusade.
  • If she is not Portuguese, why would the head of State of Portugal with surely so many other more importsnt things to do bother wasting time to present her with a Portuguese order or merit?

Colleagues, this is not upholding the policies, this is disruptive behaviour by a a lone crusader. I rest my case. I thank you for the indulgence. All of the above is said in good faith and in the hope of resolving a dispute that goes back to almost the beginning of the Wikipedia. Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 03:30, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Nelly Furtado referred to as "Portuguese Canadian" in the Canadian Government Gazette: "Portuguese Canadians have sewn a beautiful thread through the multicultural tapestry of Canadian society. Whether it is listening to the music of famous Portuguese Canadian Nelly Furtado or witnessing the achievements of the Portuguese Canadian Coalition for Better Education ...." Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 04:30, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
This is not the forum for which to fight nationalistic battles. You might consider some of the steps at dispute resolution. Additionally, I note no discussion on this point in the talk page in over two years. Resolute 04:44, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
This is not a nationalistic battle, even though some editors do their utmost to label this question as such - it is a point of principle, is is about the repeated violation of a basic and clear policy. Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 11:07, 27 April 2014 (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.

Should we create a tag for accounts we believe to be operated by sentient non-human life-forms

Latest comment: 10 years ago16 comments12 people in discussion

Such as, hyper-intelligent AIs, visitors from other dimensions, or neural networks with a good internet connection and a tor proxy? I have some concerns about 3 accounts which are actually admins, but I cannot post their names here for obvious reasons. Something like {{Bot}}, but for things which aren't obviously programmed by humans, but rather which came into existence more likely through some sort of evolutionary process. Note: If you want to work with me on this matter, I may ask you to take a modified Voight-Kampff exam, for obvious reasons. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 19:38, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

We have to assume that it's just a regular ol' human until evidence clearly shows otherwise. Should you believe you have such evidence (especially if it pertains to admins), feel free to notify the arbitration committee privately and they will review it and take action if they believe it prudent to do so. Of course, if our machine overlords already control Arbcom... well, I for one, would like to welcome our new machine overlords, congratulate them, and shake them warmly—ermm, I mean, coldly—by the hand—ermm... or circuit board... or I guess if they're static-sensitive prolly not... well, they'd know what I mean. :P --slakr\ talk / 20:51, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
When in doubt, prostration ~Helicopter Llama~ 20:57, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
That's the thing. Evidence, and plenty of it, suggests such hyper-intelligent bots, are already amongst us. I'm not going to say if they have already infiltrated ARBCOM, but I won't deny it either.
We should take this offline, there's a sedan parked outside my window that wasn't there before. Send a message to the resistance and tell them :{#`%${%&`+'${`%&NO CARRIER
 
Is the OP feeling slighted, because these hyper-intelligent entities won't let him log into their own Megapedia? It is not difficult if you can enter a sexagesimal password. --Aspro (talk) 21:03, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
For that matter, are there any rules against non-human sentient beings editing? Human editing is obviously allowed, bot editing is allowed under designated bot accounts for specific purposes, but accounts which are neither human-operated nor apparent bots don't seem to be regulated currently. (AIs are technically bots and must comply with the bot policy.) I would recommend a policy governing the conduct of such accounts, perhaps something like WP:HYPERINTELLIGENT AETHER. Harej (talk) 00:12, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
I don't think that there are rules against non-humans editing or that such rules would be accepted. We're pretty inclusive here. Chimpanzees can be taught basic language skills, for instance, and as a matter of fact I think they've created several articles already, from the looks of things. And there are other instances of this sort of thing; our article on Squiddly Diddly, for instance, was entirely written by an ant colony. So why not machines. Herostratus (talk) 03:14, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
Rules creep is a real thing, even if it doesn't have a page. These machines/aliens/hyperintelligent zombies would be powerful assets, since they probably have less meatspace obligations than we do. Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 16:01, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Assuming such accounts exist and pass the Turing test enough that they cannot be labelled with the already existing bot template, their influence on Wikipedia is not really any different from a human's. In effect, they are human so far as site operations are concerned, beyond the added advantage of never having to sleep. Ian.thomson (talk) 03:12, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
Besides, as a badger chewing on Jimbo Wales's smart phone (causing it to coincidentally post things that resemble human language), I find this discrimination highly offensive. I mean, those admins probably just have Asperger's or something. Ian.thomson (talk) 03:17, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
perhaps we could lay a trap. Set up some series of problems in the wiki that only hyperintelligent entities could tackle, then as soon as they make the edits we drop the net. The whole thing would have to be coordinated in a pub on napkins so they dont find out. I may not be able to post here again, apparently all my contributions here are logged by some infernal daemon,--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 03:42, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
Course, then the machines would permanently distrust us. If we have them make this mega-puzzle, then turn around and fire it on their cohorts, they'll prolly be pretty pissed. Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 16:01, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
  • As the OP regards it as too dangerous to identify those editors and given the paradoxes inherent in asking a bot to tag them, could we instead have a tag for those certified as human by MRI scan, autopsy or buying rounds? NebY (talk) 19:05, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
  • I think we should have a tag for accounts operated by sentient beings of any type. They're rare enough so that they should be tagged like endangered species so that scientists can pinpoint the moment they go extinct on Wikipedia.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 20:46, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
good luck with that ~Helicopter Llama~ 20:53, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Teahouse questions

Latest comment: 10 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

I think that when ever somebody asks a question at the teahouse then Clicks 'Ask my question,' instead of reloading the whole page, the question should instantly push the rest of the questions down in the same way as posting something on a facebook wall. Blackbombchu (talk) 23:49, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

That's not going to be technically feasible. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 01:48, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
Technically, sure it can. Now, the engineering staff at the foundation may prefer other projects. --NaBUru38 (talk) 01:47, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Fork the ScriptInstaller and OptIn

Latest comment: 10 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Proposal
 
2013-10-10 Curator Nominate-for-deletion-dialog

I think we should make UserScripts alive on Wikipedia. I mean something similar to Equazcion's awesome ScriptInstaller. It makes the installation process really easy by placing the Install label. I think we should make some changes with this script:

  • Place a Portlet link instead of using labels in page's title, it's more standard option, recommended in MediaWiki
  • Use dialog box for install confirmation
  • Add a UserScripts tab in User Preferences panel containing all scripts from user's Common.js, its appearance should be similar to Gadgets tab

Its design layout should look like in Nominate for deletion gadget on Commons.

What do you think? --Rezonansowy (talk | contribs) 07:39, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Rename Category:Actresses from from Georgia (country) by medium

Latest comment: 10 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

I propose that [[Category:Actresses from from Georgia (country) by medium]] be re-named because of the obvious error in the name, i.e. the repetition of "from" in the page name. I tried to move it myself but do not have the necessary permission.  Jodosma  (talk) 11:29, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

@Jodosma: This isn't the venue - it's a WP:CFDS matter. Mention WP:C2A in your request. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:19, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Placing picture/photograph request templates on the Wikipedia article pages themselves

Latest comment: 10 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

I notice that on the Japanese Wikipedia users place picture/photograph request templates at the top of articles, to say that an image is requested. It may be a very effective way in getting photographs and images for articles. This is because the average Wikipedia reader does not look at the talk pages, and he or she may not know that a photograph is desired for an article. However if he/she sees a notice that a photo is requested in the article itself, he or she may be prompted to take a photograph and donate it.

The Japanese photo request template is ja:Template:画像提供依頼 and you can see an example of the template in use here: ja:NINTENDO64

WhisperToMe (talk) 05:29, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

  • A similar template {{Image requested}} exists here, but the current practice is to use such templates on talk pages (it's used in the same way as {{Requested move}}). I would find the horizontal image request box in an article obtrusive, but I think that I used to see requests in Czech or English (I am not sure) Wikipedia articles exactly at the place where the image would be expected, i.e. usually as a right-floating box, which I found useful. Maybe it would be possible to hide such boxes from printed article versions and/or readers who are not logged in. — Petr Matas 00:13, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Should Wikipedia discontinue support for, or even actively ban, connections from old versions of Internet Explorer or from any IE on Windows XP?

Latest comment: 10 years ago65 comments18 people in discussion

Right now there is a zero day security issue with Internet Explorer on Windows XP that Microsoft refuses to fix. [4] [5] The group presently exploiting the vulnerability may spare users on versions 6-8, or running various security packages, but the point is that a critical bug exists that Microsoft will not fix. This makes IE inherently inferior to any other browser that a person can run, even if they continue using Windows XP.

Low numbered versions of IE are also a notorious pain in the ass to code HTML for, requiring their own variant versions of many key markup elements. Supporting them slows and bloats the operation of any web server.

My immediate concern is that Wikipedia is designed to send people quickly and easily to other web sites in a wide range of flexible formats -- and anyone can log in and add something to a page or template that will send users to those pages. I won't, per WP:BEANS, unless requested, but I can name three easy ways in which you as an ordinary editor can put something on a page to change what the user thinks is a click on the "Talk" tab or the Search button so as to deliver you to a third party site. And all an XP/IE user has to do is arrive at that site, and they are infected. The site can then redirect them back and unless they're paying close attention they may never even know what hit them, or that they browsed any site but Wikipedia. Therefore, if we do not do something to ban or restrict IE usage, we are setting ourselves up to be used by criminals who intend serious financial damage to visitors to our site. This will drag down our reputation right beside Microsoft's -- probably more so, since the softball media reports barely dare to mention that IE users can switch their browser, let alone tell it straight that anyone using a browser with a permanent zero-day vulnerability when free and easy alternatives exist is an idiot. The media seems cowed, and they'd love to make us the scapegoat for what will inevitably happen.

The User-Agent string contains platform tokens and version tokens that can be used to identify old versions of IE and the use of the XP operating system. [6] It should not be difficult to code a test that shunts users to a page that gives them a serious tongue-lashing while pointing them at some sites to upload free browsers with lenient OS and memory requirements. Wnt (talk) 18:45, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

No, because it's not our job. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 18:49, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
I really don't think this is necessary. We would be blocking a huge number of connections, in order to save people from pages they could just as easily access via google. We have edit filters and blacklists for a reason. This would cause a lot more harm than good. Sam Walton (talk) 18:51, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
Well, on Google they see the link to some perhaps dubious looking domain, whereas here you just see something pretty. Wnt (talk) 19:02, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
Also, I don't think that the blacklist actually offers any added security at all. We're talking about people spreading viruses to hack into your bank accounts, not some bored troll in mom's basement. They'll have a long list of sites where they've stashed copies of their trojans, and they'll log in under this IP and that, add one or a few edits here and there to get people sent to it, then cross it off the list and never touch the site or the IP address again. Wnt (talk) 19:22, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
Don't ban connections, but instead if you detect old IE browser on Windows XP, display a large security warning notice on top of each page. This way users can still use the site as normal, but also become aware of the fact they are using a vulnerable browser and may need to change it. People generally trust Wikipedia messages, since we have no adverts on here. 2Flows (talk) 22:44, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Displaying a warning banner

"instead if you detect old IE browser on Windows XP, display a large security warning notice on top of each page. This way users can still use the site as normal, but also become aware of the fact they are using a vulnerable browser and may need to change it."

You are currently using a discontinued web browser. For security reasons, and to ensure full compatibility with new features which may be introduced to Wikipedia in the future, it is recommended that you switch to a web browser which is actively maintained. Don't show me this again.

If there are no concerns about it, we could make a help page impartially listing some modern browsers (with a particular emphasis on those which are FOSS and not tied to Google). ViperSnake151  Talk  01:30, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Strong support: There are a large number of benefits to lowering usage of older versions of Internet Explorer. Versions prior to 9 (really, prior to 11) cause issues with web development due to inconsistencies with other browsers. Suggesting users try Chrome, Firefox, Opera, or newer versions of Internet Explorer (does Microsoft support 10/11 on Windows XP?) would be beneficial to everyone, including Microsoft who themselves suggest upgrading to newer versions of IE. If this continues getting support, I can volunteer to mock up what the "Upgrade to a modern browser" page would look like after clicking through the banner.
The only concern I have is this: What versions of Internet Explorer do we target with this? --Nicereddy (talk) 01:44, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
Oppose - What's next, saying "hey, Windows is not free, so Wikipedia is blocked for you"? Not everyone has access to the latest web browser, we shouldn't discriminate them. --NaBUru38 (talk) 01:42, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
@NaBUru38: There is a very big difference between suggesting a new browser and suggesting a new OS. More importantly, this isn't blocking Wikipedia. It'd be a banner at the top of the page which can be dismissed, which is hardly any huge inconvenience. There are legitimate reasons to doing this, including warning users of serious security exploits that may affect them.
As to your comment on those unable to upgrade to a newer browser, assuming people are able to access Wikipedia, they have internet access and would be able to download a different browser. I can't really think of cases where this wouldn't be true (The banner would require an active internet connection, offline versions wouldn't have it). Moreover, I don't exactly see how a banner could be considered "discrimination". --Nicereddy (talk) 01:51, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
Wnt mentioned blocking Wikipedia. (My previous post is in the wrong subsection, sorry.) --NaBUru38 (talk) 01:55, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
Not all people with internet access are able to download browser software. Some organisations restrict the installation of software to certain privileged individuals - reasons include: to ensure that everybody in the organisation is using the same software; to ensure that all new software is compatible with existing software; to prevent the use of unlicensed or malicious software. Verifying that new releases are compatible takes time, so some orgs do not install every new version: see History of Firefox#Extended Support Release. --Redrose64 (talk) 09:44, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose — 1. (most obvious) Not our job. 2. The exploit requires Flash, so blocking based on user agent is inaccurate. 3. User agents are frequently forged. 4. There's no danger while on our site. 5. See again: #1. --slakr\ talk / 02:55, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
It is indeed not our job, but Wikipedia is one of the most visited sites on the internet, and if we display such a warning message, we can make aware a lot of people of the issue, who wouldn't otherwise get to know about it. Such message will only be displayed to people with outdated vulnerable browsers, so the vast majority of those who see it can benefit from it. Yes, some users are not able to install new software, as Redrose64 mentioned above, but they can just dismiss the message once and never see it again, so it won't affect them in any negative way. 2Flows (talk) 10:48, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
So because something that can't be exploited on our site but might possibly be exploited via some other site at some point (and only if you even have Flash installed) we should then take it upon ourselves to notify the user that they might possibly be exploited should they stumble upon a site that's actively exploiting it? I've got some bad news: we've got a lot of freaking ground to cover once we start down that path, and Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not an anti-virus and vulnerability assessment tool (redlinked atm). Also, WP:SOAP partially applies here. --slakr\ talk / 22:12, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
This is not related to the particular exploit mentioned above, but to the fact that certain browsers with discontinued support from the developers will be prone to any new exploit discovered in the future. Usually, when an exploit is discovered, the developers fix it within hours, so its users can browse the internet safely again. However, if a browser has discontinued support and an exploit is found, it will not be fixed ever. Although this doesn't affect Wikipedia directly, it may affect some of its users, so we can at least show a message, notifying them about that. 2Flows (talk) 23:03, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
Actually, when a vulnerability is discovered, it can be months before it's fixed (if ever), even after the developer is well aware of it. In fact, some exploits eventually end up being publicly released to force action on the matter because of the vendor's inaction. In this instance, the vendor has apparently decided to never fix it. That's not our problem, and we're neither going to advertise advise users on the "better, safer" alternatives nor tell them they've been had to shell out dough simply because the developer wants them to upgrade. Tons of browsers have fallen into complete disrepair, and tons of plugins have also done so. We are not a vulnerability notification service, and judging by your knowledge of just how vulnerability reporting works in the industry, that's probably a good thing. --slakr\ talk / 23:17, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose Talk about leaping before you look. It turns out that the exploit affects ALL major OSs (not just WinXP) and is related to Adobe Flash.[7] Asking people to switch browsers isn't going to make them any more secure. 24.149.117.220 (talk) 18:12, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
You're missing the point here, which is this and any feature vulnerabilities will be patched in all browsers on all systems, except for old IE on Windows XP since Microsoft discontinued support for it: "And although Internet Explorer 7 and 8 were both released after Windows XP—and will continue to be supported on Windows Vista and Windows 7—they too are no longer supported on Windows XP and will no longer get patches." [8] This means from now on such browsers will be vulnerable to any new exploit, until users change to a different one. 2Flows (talk) 20:34, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
If there are folks out there in developed countries still using XP and IE 8 or earlier, then I doubt a banner, warning, or flashing lights will do any good. Underdeveloped countries probably use what they can get by with. My understanding is that anything developed afterward is usually useable with the programs that have preceded them. Is this now not the case? Are you saying that people using these out-dated systems for access will harm Wikipedia? GenQuest "Talk to Me" 21:01, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
Wikipedia will not be harmed in any way (which is why some people argue it is not our job), however, if a person with outdated browser visits a malicious site, they will be harmed, and that is why we want to notify them. Updating to a different browser may sound like a big deal, but in fact is as easy as downloading the new browser and installing it (a process which takes about 5 min and is free for everyone).
From the table below you can see that the browsers in red are insecure due to discontinued support (they will not get fixed for any further exploits in the future). The idea is to display a message to such users with insecure browsers and prompt them to change it for their own good.
Operating System Browser Is it secure?
Windows XP
(and older versions) 		Internet Explorer 6 No
Internet Explorer 7 – 8 No
Internet Explorer 9+ not supported
all other browsers Yes
All other Internet Explorer 6 No
Internet Explorer 7 – 8 Yes
Internet Explorer 9+ Yes
all other browsers Yes
This should also answer Nicereddy's question about which IE versions we should target. 2Flows (talk) 22:00, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
Thank for the reply. However, today, I see that Flash has been compromised. Should we warn those users too? And I can guarantee you that there will be another fleeting program defect right around the corner after these are taken care of. I will re-iterate that these matters have nothing to do with the writing of an encyclopedia. That is what we are here for, not to 'right all wrongs.' It simply isn't this website's job. GenQuest "Talk to Me" 22:49, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
(ec)Let's just warn all Flash users every time there's a new vulnerability, too, because it seems to happen just about every month. What about java? There's another recent one on that. Oh, and Adobe Reader. Oh, and.... See how this rapidly gets out of hand? The reason it's "not our job" is because literally: it's not our job to warn people about vulnerabilities. --slakr\ talk / 22:53, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
Again, the big difference between your examples and the current problem: Flash/Java/Adobe Reader etc etc exploits will be fixed sooner or later, as all those technologies are under active development. IE under Windows XP will not get fixed ever from now on. IE 7+8 users on Wikimedia sites are about 4% [9] and Windows XP users are about 7% [10]. These users will be prone to any new exploit discovered in their browser from now on, which will not be fixed. As Wnt explained well in the original post, Wikipedia users can easily be sent off to external sites in a number of ways, which can then infect their systems, without the users even noticing. This is definitely something which should not be dismissed as "just another vulnerability". 2Flows (talk) 23:36, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
And yet, it's still not our job. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 23:40, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
  Facepalm Actually, it's just another deprecated operating system, so unless you wanna get started on creating logic catches for {{Windows2000Warning}} {{WindowsMEWarning}} {{Windows98Warning}} {{Windows95Warning}} {{Windows311Warning}} {{WindowsNTWarning}} {{FreeBSD6Warning}} {{FreeBSD5Warning}} {{FreeBSD4Warning}} {{FreeBSD3Warning}} {{FreeBSD2Warning}} {{FreeBSD1Warning}} {{OS2WarpWarning}} and at least a thousand others (just to cover the unsupported operating systems; we need to also have some for {{FlashPlayer9}} (and below), {{Opera10}} (and below), and well, obviously too many to list), perhaps you could consider the possibility that it's not our job. I know, that's a lofty goal at this point, as you seem determined to stand your ground, but it's at least worth the shot. Let me know if you need a list of completely outdated operating systems. We Are That App™ --slakr\ talk / 00:20, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
The logic shouldn't be very difficult. You pretty much look up a portion of the user-agent in a dictionary, and if an entry is found you return the warning for that string. Anyway, it's really one browser and OS that are the major present vulnerability. Wnt (talk) 00:34, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
Just one? Nonsense! We need to do everything we can to ensure our users' safety on the internet, even if it has no bearing on our site's operation. Everything. We. Can. So get started. Let us know when it's ready for us to try out. --slakr\ talk / 00:50, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
I feel like you're beating on a strawman there. "Everything we can" is an exaggeration - no one expends infinite resources and total priority on security rather than ordinary site operations, except of course for American public schools. Nonetheless, if we don't do something to keep such hostile activity from getting out of hand, it will be a lot of trouble for us. Wnt (talk) 01:04, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
I don't want to make life harder for people in the 'Third World' with tired old computers. But so far as I know, there are options like the Opera Browser that work for Windows XP and low memory requirements. OLPC has some other option that I suppose must be even more frugal. [11] I think that even in the poorest countries people who can access the web at all can download a better browser for free, whereas they can't afford to have their computers trashed by viruses.
As for whether it's "our job" or not, why is it our job to interfere with spamming, advertising, and virus transmission, but not to interfere with a mechanism by which these can and will be accomplished using Wikipedia as an intermediary? Wnt (talk) 00:15, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Strong support for a strong warning because Wikipedia could be used spread an infection, and it is our responsibility to not be complicit. I would make the warning a little stronger, perhaps "... a discontinued web browser with known security issues." Perhaps also advise of free alternatives. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:54, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
If the fact that someone can insert a link into one of our pages that will take a user to some other page that will infect them makes us complicit, then we have many, many more things that we should be worried about. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 00:02, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
It's possible though that a person could click on a part of a Wikipedia page that looks and largely acts like part of the site interface, yet that single click is the last conscious action they need to do before having a virus-infected computer. I should explain that yes, there's another way to deal with the worst problems so that the links that do this are less deceptive looking -- we could disable 'position:absolute' and 'position:fixed' in the HTML attributes allowed in wikitext -- but it would ruin a lot of pretty and useful templates/modules, like map templates. Wnt (talk) 00:22, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
Merely getting linked to a malicious site does not necessarily result in an infection, it also requires a vulnerability. The problem is somewhat constrained as vulnerabilities are generally fixed. The problem here is that this vulnerability is not going to be fixed; the only fix is wean people off of it. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:56, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
Well, a fix was made available (see below), but that is irrelevant if people don't apply it. Discussion continues below. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:59, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose. As per others, it is not our job to police the wider internet. If years of warnings that XP support was ending didn't cause these people to upgrade, it would be arrogant and presumptuous of us to think that we would be more effective by annoying the reader. Also, it isn't just XP at risk, but any operating system or browser that is not properly patched. Are we going to start posting nag warnings for people on Windows Vista/7/8 and who aren't regularly patching their own systems? Resolute 23:11, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Support Per above comments. From the tech side, we should develop a MediaWiki extension for it. --Rezonansowy (talk | contribs) 07:11, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose per above - 1.It's not our job, 2. Everyone had been warned months and months ago to change OS, If they can't head that advice then It's not our problem, 3. Who even uses IE lol. →Davey2010→→Talk to me!→ 14:37, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
"2. Everyone had been warned months and months ago to change OS" - Where exactly has the average internet user been warned? On tech blogs and publications, they never read? Or maybe Windows XP would place a large banner on their users' desktops to tell them to get a new OS? I don't think so. Wikipedia serves a very broad group of users, so everyone who is not aware of the issue could be informed.
"3. Who even uses IE lol." - just 25% of all internet users. And how is that a reason to oppose showing a message only to specific IE users? 2Flows (talk) 16:21, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
BBC, Daily Mail, The Sun, and Digital Spy all reported it, Perhaps it wasn't in the paper but for sure it was online, I personally knew a year ago but I can understand others wouldn't of known that far back,
The "Who even uses IE lol" was a joke hence the "LOL" at the end but in hindsight perhaps it wasn't the best of jokes so striked it out :). →Davey2010→→Talk to me!→ 16:32, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose It is not the purpose of Wikipedia, nor Wikimedia in general, to advise users of internet security of their software. Techies often misinterpret the continued use of IE6/XP etc. as a problem to do with users not updating, but its often to do with users who are unable to update, due to administration restrictions or having low spec computers. I can say that this change would affect me viewing Wikipedia at work, which runs IE6 as standard despite being one of the largest financial institutions in the world. SFB 14:35, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
How will it affect you in a negative way? You will see an informative message, and since you are aware of the issue, you will dismiss it and never see it again. 2Flows (talk) 14:48, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Moot

We are not in the business of warning users not to use older software. Anyway, this particular issue has been resolved as Microsoft has released a patch for IE8 today, even for XP. — Edokter (talk) — 00:26, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

As an XP user with IE8, I can confirm this. This morning, I got the little yellow shield informing me that the Windows automatic updates box wanted attention: once fired up this told me "Installing Security Update for Internet Explorer 8 for Windows XP (KB2964358)". Details are at Description of the security update for Internet Explorer for systems that have security update 2929437 installed: May 1, 2014. --Redrose64 (talk) 08:41, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
It's not really moot because this is billed as a one-time thing. Wnt (talk) 12:41, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
Without wishing to make a slippery slope argument, if there isn't a specific issue any more, where do we stop with giving users advice? 'If you're using XP you're not as protected anymore' isn't any more useful than a whole host of other advice we could give. Sam Walton (talk) 13:46, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
This particular issue was just given as an example and was not the point of the discussion. Yes, Microsoft may have fixed this one issue, but what are the chances they release a security fix for every future exploit discovered for a OS they do not support anymore? 2Flows (talk) 16:25, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
But where does it end? Should we warn user of Windows 2000 as well? What about Windows 98? Point is, this is how the software ecosystem works; each time software reaches end-of-life, the end user is solely responsible when they continue using it. — Edokter (talk) — 16:37, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
It ends right at Windows XP. What you're saying is absolutely true, but currently Windows XP is the second most used OS with 26% share. (In comparison, Windows 2000 has 0.03% share, while Windows 98 has 0.00%) [12] It makes sense to warn the users of the second most used OS, that they may be vulnerable. 2Flows (talk) 17:43, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
But that's not our job. We are not a reliable source. We do not give medical or legal advice because we are not authorities on the subject, no matter how trivial, obvious, or common sense such advice may seem. We are just as unqualified to give technical advice as we are to give medical and legal advice. Admittedly, that's not a perfect analogy, since the stakes are lower in this arena. But the principle of not setting Wikipedia-as-an-entity up as an authority that can give advice or recommendations is the same. On the other hand, this is Microsoft's job, so let's let Microsoft do its job and let's go back to doing ours (which doesn't include this). Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 17:58, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
When Wikipedia participates directly in the disease process (flashing images that can trigger epileptic seizures in vulnerable people) Wikipedia does try to accommodate the problem. The same should be true when our links can surprise people into going to a virus infested site, when we know that they can be immediately infected without further decisions. Wnt (talk) 14:06, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
Apples to oranges. Flashing lights and epilepsy open up liability issues to a site. Are you claiming with any authority that Wikipedia (or any other website that a vulnerable computer happens to visit) is liable for the inaction of updating software by the owners who visit our site and the consequences of that visit? Or perhaps you are saying Wikipedia should, in fact, open itself up to accept liability—by warning some users and not others of possible vulnerabilities in their surfing techniques or software? Who's going to pay for that? None of that is part of the purview of our mission here. We are a community encyclopedia. That's it. Period. End of story. That's where our 'public service' ends. We are not the police, babysitter, sugar-daddy, or some 'software authority' of the internet. That can happen at your web-page, blog, or whatever; but can not, should not ever happen here. GenQuest "Talk to Me" 16:18, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
I'm not a lawyer and I shouldn't argue liability, but at least the social liability here stems from the chance that the way the site is built allows people to be tricked into thinking they're clicking an internal link when they're really clicking an external one. I'm not aware of a really good way to fix that (though come to think of it, maybe I should look into whether overflow:hidden can do something) but warning the obvious targets of the hack is an expedient meant to reduce the scope of the problem. Wnt (talk) 16:33, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
(ec) First of all, I have to state that such a disclaimer would be a violation of Wikipedia's WP:NOT policies, specifically WP:NOTADVOCATE. To "warn" users is to advocate that they change their behavior, service, application, or other. Second this opens Wikipedia to the liability of keeping its users inform of all other end-of-life (EOL) products or services. Are we to detect if someone has "Automatic Updates" turned on and send them a nauseous messages if it is not? You may say that this should be a special case, but I honestly don't see how it is any different from other EOL cases. Third, though this particular issue has been fixed, to claim that we must still warn users because of "future exploits" is very much glairing into a crystal ball. 24.149.117.220 (talk) 16:49, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
[ec] Such warnings will open the foundation to possible liability and certainly criticism. Wikipedia is NOT actively tricking anybody. Bad links are almost immediately removed (in most cases). And external, in-line-links are no longer MoS and should be/are being removed as encountered. And, just what does an encyclopedia have to do with "social liability" anyway? Where does this imperative to help software developers come from? I'd humbly suggest you'd be more effective writing that article on "social liability", than pursuing this further here. GenQuest "Talk to Me" 16:56, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
Whether or not we would create liability by issuing a warning, we still may have a standard of due care issue because we allow our editors to add URLs and IP addresses in a way that users wouldn't know that they have visited a remote website.  Is there any reason to continue to allow this?  Unscintillating (talk) 01:26, 4 May 2014 (UTC)
Are you suggesting that users should not be allowed to add external links to articles, or that only a limited subset of users are allowed to add them. That would negatively impact Wikipedia's mission as an encyclopedia that anyone can contribute. There is always a risk with clicking on an external link and Wikipedia has never warrantied that links on its articles have been vetted for malware. 24.149.117.220 (talk) 16:40, 4 May 2014 (UTC)
I am talking about the case that started this entire discussion thread, which as I understand it is that "any editor" can add code so that when readers click the "search button" the reader can unknowingly visit any page on the internet.  Is there any reason to continue to allow this?  Unscintillating (talk) 22:27, 4 May 2014 (UTC)
To my knowledge, we already disallow it to the extent that we can. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 16:28, 5 May 2014 (UTC)
  • There is also an issue with visible web sites being malicious.  In working a related AfD today, I looked at California South Bay University.  This google search shows that there are concerns about some of the pages on the school web site.  Google warnings say, "This web site may harm your computer".  It is hard to know what is going on, since the school claims to teach web site design, and sources for the school are hard to locate.  Nonetheless, if Google can warn users "This web site may harm your computer" about specific pages, should we allow this entire web site to be hyperlinked at California South Bay University?  Unscintillating (talk) 01:26, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

‎

Yes, it can be linked. And by the looks of it, the webpage appears to have been falsely reported. Apparently the false report was generated by a malfunctioning CMS and the website is currently under maintenance. This isn't the first case where I've seen this happen, and it can be difficult for the affected website to clear its name with Google. But there is no danger to anyone visiting the site at the moment other than the website containing nothing but a maintenance message. 24.149.117.220 (talk) 16:40, 4 May 2014 (UTC)
The fact that you've identified this one case as not a current threat, does not mean that there are no warnings applicable to Wikipedia readers.  You are implying that all Google warnings applicable to Wikipedia hyperlinks are false hits.  Unscintillating (talk) 22:27, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

More forthright Wiki tee

Latest comment: 10 years ago7 comments4 people in discussion

I'm sure many of you have seen the I edit Wikipedia T-shirts at the Wikimedia Shop. As swell as the shirts are, it occurred to me that, for many of us, they'd tell only half the story—thus I propose this enhanced version:

I edit Wikipedia
because I have nothing
better to do

I realize this is a wardrobe proposal rather than one relating directly to editing WP (aside from my having posted the proposal itself), so feel free to move this to the specialized WP Editor Fashions page. Such a page must exist, but I couldn't find it. – AndyFielding (talk) 20:58, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

In the left margin, under "Navigation", you should find a Wikimedia Shop link. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:10, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
...which will enable you to view the entire stunning array of Wikipedia products, rather than just the shirt I linked to above. – AndyFielding (talk) 22:52, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
The page does have a link to m:Wikimedia merchandise, which has an associated talk page. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:31, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
Had I posted this there, though, someone might've taken it seriously. – AndyFielding (talk) 23:33, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
How motivating. Praemonitus (talk) 05:14, 4 May 2014 (UTC)
If I had nothing better to do, I'd buy a t-shirt with that logo & wear it when I edited Wikipedia. (It would confirm my wife's suspicions, & I bet she'd come up with a "Honey-do" list for me really fast. Then again, maybe I shouldn't buy one...) -- llywrch (talk) 20:51, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Mobile site strapline

Latest comment: 10 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Hi. I've started a request for comments at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Mobile site strapline. Any and all are welcome to participate. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:39, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Edit Counter Optin

Latest comment: 10 years ago474 comments314 people in discussion
CHANGE PENDING
Consensus to remove opt in requirement. WJBscribe (talk) 10:13, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
Waiting to hear from WMF.—cyberpower ChatOnline 04:25, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

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.

Statement from closer

This was far from an easy discussion to close. It raises difficult issues regarding the extent to which Wikipedia users can expect privacy in relation to their edits and in particular the aggregation of publicly available data in a particular edit counter tool. I say a particular tool because one of the tensions running throughout this discussion is that it is limited to the question of where users should be required to "opt in" (or indeed able to "opt out") of having aggregated data regarding their editing made available only through this one tool. Other tools exist, and may be created in future, that provide similar (and in one case at least, more extensive information, including the times of day at which editors most frequently edit). This discussion does not extend to these other tools, nor does it affect tools that might become available in future. The reason that this tool is being discussed separately is that it runs on a WMF-server and accordingly has been subject to discussion on a global level. The result of that discussion was that the opt in requirement was to remain the default choice, but that this could be overridden by consensus on any local wiki. This forms the backdrop to this discussion. It appears that: (a) the Wikimedia foundation has no objection to the opt in requirement being removed provided that this is done on a wiki-by-wiki basis and supported by local consensus (the privacy policy does not preclude aggregation of public data in this way); and (b) a positive consensus is needed to remove the opt in requirement - if this discussion reaches no consensus, it is to be retained.

In relation to the discussion itself, I am conscious that a significant proportion of those in favour retention of the opt in requirement are primarily de-wiki contributors, whose attention was drawn to this discussion by German Wikipedia's Kurier and other discussions on that Wiki. Some have few (or few recent) edits to the English Wikipedia and are not actively involved in discussions here. Whilst both the canvassing and more limited involvement in this project must be factored in, I have not discounted these contributions entirely - the effect of this discussion is to potentially increase the available of aggregated data regarding their editing of en-wiki (but not de-wiki).

Numerically, a significant majority (even before account is taken of the point made above) favour removal of the opt in requirement. Very few favour the introduction of an opt out requirement, even by way of a second choice alternative to their primary positions. Is there a consensus to remove the opt in requirement?

Sensible and cogent comments are made on both sides. Those advocating the removal of the opt in requirement point, among other things, to the data being publicly available and therefore not "private" and to the other tools (past, present and contemplated) which do (or will/could) provide similar aggregated data in a user friendly format. The advantage of this data being available for tracking user conduct issues and for analysis in RfA and other forums also forms a large part of the argument to remove the requirement. Those advocating the retention of the opt in requirement point to expectations of privacy by users and that these should be respected whether others share them or not; just because data is available does not mean that some nefarious will go to the trouble of aggregating it, whereas they might make use of the aggregated data if already neatly packaged. In addition, it is pointed out that the existence of an opt in requirement created a legitimate expectation that this would not be removed at a later date and that users may have continued to edit on that basis who would otherwise have chosen not to. Edits made in this expectation cannot be be "undone". Few of those supporting the retention of the opt in requirement address the existence of other tools that aggregate editing data and the argument that the opt in requirement therefore promotes a false belief that the aggregate data cannot be accessed elsewhere. Indeed, a significant number of those advocating retention of the opt in requirement appear to be under the positive mistaken belief that, were the opt in requirement retained, confidentiality would be maintained over the aggregated data (although acknowledging the availability of the raw data).

Were it not for the availability of the data through other media, including in aggregated form, I do not think this discussion would have reached the consensus it has. But the data is available elsewhere, both in raw and aggregated form, (the cat is out of the bag, so to speak) and can continue to be made available in aggregated form elsewhere. Limiting the data presented by this edit counter will simply result in more use of other tools not regulated by WMF. Accordingly, I think that taken as a whole this discussion does demonstrate a consensus (though far from a resounding one) that the opt in requirement be should removed and not replaced by an opt out.

The above said, I urge anyone developing or maintaining an edit counter tool to takes things slowly and think carefully about the privacy consequences of aggregated data and to listen carefully to those concerns, and to remember that a significant minority opposes aggregated data being made available through tools such as this one. I would also encourage a further discussion about potential limitation on what sorts of aggregated data should be made available through tools such as the one under discussion here. In particular, I note concerns about whether the times of day at which editors contribute most frequently should be made available (although this is not a feature of the tool currently under discussion). Whilst the community has less control over the tools hosted on non-WMF servers, it does have considerable influence over those acting in good faith and it is to be hoped that operators of tools will respect community consensus (even when not required to be the WMF). I hope this discussion marks the start of a broader discussion about how aggregated data is made available, not the end of such discussion.

WJBscribe (talk) 10:13, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Proposal

It was established globally, that the edit counter is to retain its optin (see meta:Requests for comment/X!'s Edit Counter). Before the global discussion, a local discussion took place leaning in favor of removing the optin requirements. I am hereby asking again, since I abruptly stopped the last discussion.

The explanation

The new User Analysis Tool, currently providing identical data to X!'s Edit Counter, honors the optin requirement, per the global discussion that took place on meta. However, the local consensus to this may be very different from the global consensus. Optin is having additional aggregated data be displayed about a user, at the user's consent. It should be emphasized that this data is publicly available. Optout is having additional aggregated data be suppressed about a user, if the user so wishes. No opt is making the aggregated data be displayed, regardless of what the user wishes. This additional aggregated data consists of monthly edit counts per namespace and most-edited pages per namespace.

The question

Should en.wikipedia be an optin, optout, or a no opt wiki for the edit counter? This change applies to this Wikipedia only.—cyberpower ChatOnline 21:49, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

For reference

The earlier local discussion mentioned above is at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 113#X!'s Edit Counter. – Wbm1058 (talk) 19:01, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Retain the opt-in requirement

  1. Support. I don't know the complete details of the edit counter or the other ways to obtain the same information, but Wikipedia should assume that its editors deserve maximum privacy unless and until they elect to give it up. Technical 13's counterargument below is significant, that conceding maximum privacy in cases that editors don't actually have it could be deceptive. However, to the extent that the tool is used, granting editors opt-in protection from use of the tool is still significant. Spike-from-NH (talk) 00:37, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support. Easy access to this kind of processed data can do some serious harm to individuals. That is the reason the German community has been vocal for dataprotection not just the legal aspect of it. Over the years people have expected the optin behaviour. Changing it now would be totally unfair to those people relying on it. Agathoclea (talk) 08:25, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support as someone who elected to opt in. This is a case in which we do not fully understand the ramifications of what we are creating, and in deference to unintended consequences and humility about our own limited understanding of what those might be, we should retain the strongest reasonable privacy controls.--~TPW 12:08, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support. Even though the information is in theory publicly available, presenting it in this format is still a privacy issue. (Just because we all walk down the street doesn't mean we'd want CCTV cameras joining up our activities and someone posting it online.) It would be unfair to people who edited on the understanding that there was an opt-in to remove it after the fact; if it's switched to opt-out not everyone will notice. If the opt-in is removed, at the very least there should be a grandfather clause so that it isn't retroactive. I'm thinking particularly of people who may have edited at work. SlimVirgin (talk) 15:37, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support Wikipedia traffic is now encrypted by default to make it more difficult for others to snoop on what individuals do here. There was a substantial global decision taken to maintain privacy in respect of this tool too. There doesn't seem to be any particular reason for the English language project to deviate from this. Andrew (talk) 20:53, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  6. Support Editors privacy should be respected and even if there is a workaround, at least let's not facilitate anyone snooping around. I support grandfathering the optin if the decision is to remove it.--Mariordo (talk) 04:32, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
  7. Support Here we go again. --Artoasis (talk) 10:22, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
  8. Support – It would be a mistake, on multiple levels, to alter this from the current opt-in requirement. Hopefully it is something an office action would dis-allow; should such an awry consensus form. Just as a consensus can not form to disregard copyright constraints, or other zero tolerance issues, privacy is fundamentally equal! No good reason has been proffered for needing this change; only that we could reach a different consensus. And any reason given could only sound like a big brother "plea of support".—John Cline (talk) 10:32, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
  9. Support SlimVirgin sums it up well for me. What we have now works well; opting-in is easy, and I see no need to change. It's a good balance between transparency and privacy. Miniapolis 14:40, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
  10. Support for privacy reasons, per Mariordo. Regards, Iselilja (talk) 17:17, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
  11. Support I favor the opt-in policy. Shyncat (talk) 17:24, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
  12. Support Essential for privacy. I thought that this was decided already; why is it here again? North8000 (talk) 18:49, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
  13. Support Things involving poking, prodding, measuring and analyzing should require consent, online and off. Not that they do. But they should. We could. InedibleHulk (talk) 23:43, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
  14. Support +1 What North8000 and SlimVirgin said. Djembayz (talk) 01:59, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
  15. Support Optin permits a user to take action to support a change; optout forces a user to take action to prevent it, and furthermore may go unnoticed or unaddressed. That's why optout in general is an "in your face" approach, which I usually oppose for just that reason. No-opt is even more so. If there may be different takes on an issue, why not allow people to simply to respond in the most natural way: say "yes" (optin), or "leave status-quo" (nothing required)? Give people a chance to look it over, and let consensus develop on its own. In time, perhaps there will be little disagreement. If not, what's the harm of optin? Evensteven (talk) 07:14, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
  16. Support Per SlimVirgin: There are many things we do publicly where we wouldn't like aggregated data to be publicly available (leaving the house, buying alcohol, seeing a doctor,... ), so "the raw data are public already" is not a reason for removing the choice. "Other tools exist" doesn't strike either, since other tools are not linked from each contributions page. The concerns about providing a false impression of privacy should be adressed in the documentation of the choice, not by removing the choice. — HHHIPPO 10:12, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
  17. Support per SlimVirgin and others. It Is Me Here t / c
  18. Support - I don't myself see a problem with this information being displayed, but I agree with Slim Virgin's point that it may matter to some people, and that they have edited with the understanding that these statistics would not be generally available unless they opted for it. It's the retroactive aspect that I feel isn't fair. —Anne Delong (talk) 12:23, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
  19. Support —and make it easier to opt in!!! I don’t have a problem with it myself and many of the arguments for the other two options are quite valid but it would be a little unfair to those who don’t want this to totally reverse it. ☸ Moilleadóir ☎ 03:05, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
  20. Support My thoughts are in line with those of SlimVirgin. While the information is publicly available, there is no reason to make it easier to access unless someone wants it to be. Again, like him, I'm thinking of those who edit at work. Zell Faze (talk) 11:52, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
  21. Support - Per above.--HCPUNXKID 15:27, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
  22. Support - I see the benefits of changing it, but I think the arguments given above outweigh those benefits. - Aoidh (talk) 09:46, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
  23. Support. Privacy is very important. Many editors may contribute while working from the company computers. It is someone's right not to publish private information. We do not want to discourage anonymous editors from editing. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:05, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
  24. Support for now. Once the toothpaste is out of the tube you can't put it back in. SlimVirgin has valid concerns and makes good points. EditCounterOptIn.js is too obscure a means of opting in or out. I suspect that some users are not opted in because of this, and if we change it to opt-out, some may want to do that and not understand how to do that. Let's first make opt-in a check-box on Special:Preferences, then wait a while and revisit this. – Wbm1058 (talk) 17:36, 8 April 2014 (UTC) ... Just a note that I am still occasionally seeing "This webpage is not available" errors from this tool, and priority probably should have been given to sorting out the technical issues and getting the tool stablized for at least a month or two, before opening up this discussion. Wbm1058 (talk) 17:50, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
  25. Support per Moilleadóir and Anne Delong. Kennethaw88 • talk 01:59, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
  26. Support. I can't say I feel strongly about this. When the additional data was presented on the toolserver, it didn't worry me, but when it became opt-in I didn't think it was important so I never bothered to change my settings. I don't suppose it makes any difference to the vast majority of Wikipedians, but maybe there is someone out there who might run into trouble if we connect the dots for everyone to see. Also, I'm bothered that privacy is practically non-existent throughout most of the Internet, and I like the idea that it should be particularly respected at Wikipedia. So in a borderline case where I don't think it much matters, I'm inclined to !vote in favor of privacy. Rivertorch (talk) 05:47, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
  27. Support. Users' Privacy must be provided for. Such a statistical overview is no public data. It is a personal profile that needs to be kept from the public. It may only be published if the user expressly wants to. This is a civil rights issue.--Aschmidt (talk) 12:14, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
  28. Support. --Horgner (talk) 12:43, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
  29. Support. Per Aschmidt. Raymond (talk) 12:57, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
  30. Support. Per Aschmidt. --Zinnmann (talk) 12:59, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
  31. Support per this rationale and to stay in conformance with EU legislation. --AFBorchert (talk) 13:10, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
    AFBorchert, can you explain why you believe that a non-EU person creating a non-EU tool on a non-EU computer system should care what EU legislation says? I mean, it might be nice to go along with the principle, but do you believe that it is actually required for some reason? Is the EU asserting that the EU gets to tell 100% of the world's population what to they're permitted to do on 100% of the world's computers?
    I am certainly not a lawyer, but I believe that it's typical for EU legislation to affect only people and computers that are actually in the EU. The last time I heard anything about this, Americans using American computers, or Asian people using Asian computers, or African people using African computers, were not actually subject to EU law. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:43, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
    See Lex loci delicti commissi. The location of the computer system does not matter in this case. If this tool is accessible from Europe, it is subject to European law. --AFBorchert (talk) 08:56, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
    That article says nothing whatsoever about the supremacy of EU laws. It says that when multiple laws apply, a court first decides which ones it believes are most relevant. For an American user on an American computer, it seems to me that they would not choose EU laws. (Of course, I might be wrong, but so might you.) It seems likely to me that your claim here is an oversimplification. For one thing, what if laws in different countries directly conflict with each other? You can't just say, "this law demands that you do this, and this other law demands that you never do this, and therefore you must simultaneously do X and not-X". WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:47, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
    It is not about supremacy, it is about whether EU law applies. See here for a decision by a German court per lex loci delicti commissi in a case against the WMF concerning copyright and personality rights. --AFBorchert (talk) 05:09, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
    Since Germany has no jurisdiction in the first place, what their courts say doesn't matter. Moreover, the German claim that it does matter is reprehensible and despicable, and we should utterly condemn it. --Trovatore (talk) 23:34, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
    Agreed that German law has no jurisdiction, but the law still does matter because it affects our German editors. If providing opt in gives editors the means to follow German law, I see no reason not to provide it. The rest of us are still free to choose as we will. That much is not catering to inappropriate legal claims, but it is supporting editors. Evensteven (talk) 04:49, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
    I actually !voted for keeping opt-in. As I say below, someone can easily provide this information regardless of user consent, but I don't see why it has to be us. I just want it to be clear that we're not attorning to any claims of extraterritorial jurisdiction. --Trovatore (talk) 06:41, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
    Yes indeed, I did see your vote, and comments. I wasn't contradicting your main point, but saying there is something about that law that does matter here. I doubt that opt-in is enough for that law, which (I think) seeks some control over WP also, but if opt-in's enough to get the German courts off the backs of German editors, protecting them from prosecution, then we can do something useful in this forum, at no cost to ourselves. The rest needs handling elsewhere. Evensteven (talk) 15:50, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
    Not exactly following. Under what circumstances could German editors (theoretically) be prosecuted? Are you talking about when they use the tool, or what? --Trovatore (talk) 19:25, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
    German law applies to German users (a group that defaultly includes non-resident German citizens and non-citizen residents of Germany), so it's possible that a German editor should not use this tool. I'd guess, however, that it's more probable that the German law is prohibiting German Wikipedians from maintaining the tool, rather than from using it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:05, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
    Oh yes, that could be, I suppose. I guess my feeling is that, if we want to do this for good and sufficient reason, then we'll just have to do without German programming skills on this tool. I don't think we're obliged to change our approach just to give German programmers the fun of tweaking it (and if they really want to, they can make their own fork of it anyway). As I say, though, my preference is for opt-in in this case. --Trovatore (talk) 19:13, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
    @WhatamIdoing: FYI: When you sue the WMF at a German court, the WMF will be subject to German law, even though the foundation is seated in the U.S. We have already had several cases like this.--Aschmidt (talk) 20:23, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
    And how will the court enforce its judgment? --Trovatore (talk) 21:36, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
    This is not up to the court, it's the plaintiffs business. He can levy execution against the defendant from the judgement which is just another legal title.--Aschmidt (talk) 22:03, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
    And how will the plaintiff enforce it? At some point he would have to involve the US legal system, no? --Trovatore (talk) 22:06, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
    Of course. This is not wild west, our judiciaries co-operate.—In other words, this ballot may end as it will, in the very end it will be the courts who decide over the privacy of those within the jurisdiction of any European country. See AFBorchert's hint to the decision in the Loriot case the WMF lost against the heir of a German writer a while ago.--Aschmidt (talk) 22:10, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
    I believe the US is rather reluctant to extend comity in cases touching what would be First Amendment issues if tried here. That is the correct attitude to take. It is a bad thing that Germany (and the rest of the world) does not have its own First Amendment; this is one case where the US is more right than the rest of the world, and that is the most important reason we have to take a hard line against extraterritorial claims. --Trovatore (talk) 22:13, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
    Freedom of speech and freedom of the press have been adapted—as most civil rights—from the U.S. constitution. You will find those liberties in article 5 of the German basic law. Those rights also apply between citizens.--Aschmidt (talk) 22:19, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
    If it doesn't stop them from banning the Horst Wessel Lied, then it isn't strong enough. I gather that the German law wouldn't bother us because it's supposed to have an exception for educational uses, but if it didn't, we would still report the lyrics, even if it's against German law and is available in Germany. --Trovatore (talk) 22:33, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
    Godwin's Law rocks!!! EEng (talk) 02:17, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
    Totally beside the point here. No one compared anything to Nazism. I pointed out the free-speech violations of the existing German government. --Trovatore (talk) 02:21, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
    Lighten up, will you? Geesh! EEng (talk) 02:26, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
    Please note that the Horst-Wessel-Lied has been banned in 1945 in this country by allied forces, and that this ban still prevails. Of course, any nazi symbols or content is banned in this country, so they had to import it from the U.S. for many years. What's more, you will find many usernames on English Wikipedia alluding to neonazi meanings that have long been banned on German Wikipedia. Most law professors teaching today in this country and most judges at the German Federal Constitutional Court were trained in the U.S. On the other hand, as I said, our judiciaries and the legal profession are tightly linked together and share many of the same principles, you might not be aware.--Aschmidt (talk) 22:41, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
    The point is that Wikipedia will not be bound by any such law. If de.wiki users don't want to have such content, that's fine, but German law does not stop us. --Trovatore (talk) 23:16, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
    The problem is that you won't get far this way. It will not be generally accepted and it is ethically wrong.--Aschmidt (talk) 00:30, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
    Not sure which part you're talking about. Germany is ethically wrong for the way they restrict speech.
    (If you mean the opt-in part, I support opt-in, but not because of German law.) --Trovatore (talk) 00:42, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
  32. Support per Aschmidt (#27) and AFBorchert (#31) —Morten Haan (talk) 14:53, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
  33. Support. Leave it up to the individual user whether this kind of data aggregation should be visible to anybody else. --RonaldH (talk) 17:41, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
  34. Support We live in a world where all sorts of information is publicly available. We are being tracked minute by minute every day of our lives. That does not make harmless the act of aggregating every bit of publicly available information and displaying it for all to see, quite the contrary.--agr (talk) 18:26, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
  35. Support There is no need for this to be public data, our privacy must be provided for. Imveracious (talk) 18:46, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
  36. Gestapo, KGB, Stasi, Securitate, NSA, Wikimedia? No, thanks! Not all what is possible fits my sense of moral. Marcus Cyron (talk) 19:54, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
  37. Supportwhy make it easyer for nsa and co. --Wetterwolke (talk) 21:06, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
    I don't follow the reasoning of your argument. It's already "easy for NSA and co.", the raw data is public domain for all to see. Xtools only converts this raw data into a user-friendly format that can be conveniently and easily read by a layperson. Removing opt-in for Xtools means that everyone can freely access this information regardless of their computer competency, and not just "NSA and co.". --benlisquareT•C•E 05:24, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
  38. Support. We are here to write articles, not to collect and aggregate data and not to spy on other users. Editors don't need this kind of information when working on articles, therefore we should not collect it in the first place or even make it publically available to anyone without explicit consent of the user (-> Opt-In). Opt-Out is no solution, because less experienced users will not be aware of it, and if this data would become available publically, we can be sure it will be misused by some. Since potentially this can cause serious harm to users in real life, we should keep it at Opt-In! Anything else would be unethical (and in some countries even illegal). --Matthiaspaul (talk) 21:42, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
  39. Support. We need to be careful not to trample on international laws; "let the lawyers sort it out" is _NOT_ a good strategy with these sorts of things. I would be in favor of making this tool more visible, however, as I didn't know about it until today when I logged in and saw it mentioned above my watchlist, and I have now opted in (if I did it right.)PsyMar (talk) 06:12, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
    And "let amateurs vote on the interpretation of the law" is a better strategy? Mr.Z-man 12:49, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
    No, but "in absence of expert advice, assume the most restrictive legal interpretation" is. If we are absolutely certain that there are no legal issues in switching this to opt-out, then... well, then I still have problems anyway, but that's getting away from the point. As it stands I don't think that certainty exists, and so Psymar's support on those grounds seems perfectly reasonable to me. Aawood (talk) 11:46, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
    Should we also assume that Iranian and Saudi law might apply and remove anything from the encyclopedia that might be considered blasphemous toward Islam? Should we apply the most restrictive interpretation of North Korean law and remove anything critical of their government? WMF has a whole team of lawyers on staff, why don't we just ask them if we think this is a potential issue? If they say it's illegal, then we can just end this whole debate entirely. If not, then we can debate the issues that are actually relevant, not just hypothetical scenarios. Mr.Z-man 14:15, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
    In that case, please do feel free to contact the WMF legal team and come back with a response. Until then, we don't have anything but hypotheticals to go on and, as such, it makes sense to take the safer road. Aawood (talk) 12:06, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
  40. Support per SlimVirgin. SpencerT♦C 07:52, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
  41. Support per above. NNW (talk) 08:18, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
  42. Support Vogone (talk) 09:40, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
  43. Support Yellowcard (talk) 11:28, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
  44. Support --Leuchtschnabelbeutelschabe (talk) 11:46, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
    Discussion moved from here to discussion section below at request of user SlimVirgin. Evensteven (talk) 21:17, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
  45. Support Lending my support to Opt in. One point to make is that simply going with the majority may not be the best approach here, as while the majority may not be fundamentally affected one way or another, the minority who are may be affected very harmfully indeed. I am also not convinced by the argument that "anyone can make a tool to get this information anyway"; firstly, this is simply not true (I would argue a relatively low percentage of the world population have the expertise, opportunity and desire to make such a tool), and secondly, I see no reason to make life any easier for someone that would. Finally, I am not a lawyer, but this seems the safest legal option globally. Keep it opt in, for the people here who feel strongly that it should be, and the majority out there who have no idea that there's even something to opt in/out of. Aawood (talk) 11:52, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
  46. Support As for AFBorchert and Aawood. Any kind of data aggregation tool must be optin. -- Smial (talk) 11:56, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
  47. Support: Always prefer a choice over forced clean-up (ie opt out). Niteshift36 (talk) 16:54, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
  48. Support --Krib (talk) 21:30, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
  49. Support -- even if doing so only makes accessing the info more of a challenge and doesn't actually ensure privacy (if i understand correctly) JDanek007Talk 03:20, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
  50. Support Per ASchmidt and AFBorchert. User Data are not public data. -- Andreas Werle (talk) 04:32, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
    But it is. This proposal doesn't change anything privacy-wise, it only allows for greater convenience for users with constructive requirements to use Xtools (e.g. identifying and dealing with abusive users) to be able to use it. I mean, I don't have to use Xtools, there are a handful of other tools out there as well. If I see an editor that I have suspicions with, I can simply mouse-over his name, and WP:POPUPS will tell me everything I need to know about this person. Forcing an opt-in component in Xtools is hardly helpful in terms of user privacy; it's just like hiding under the blankets, holding your hands over the ears, and pretending the problem doesn't exist, when it still does. My editing information, your editing information, everyone's editing information is still freely and readily visible to anyone. --benlisquareT•C•E 05:34, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
  51. Support --Superbass (talk) 17:56, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
  52. Support --KurtR (talk) 01:16, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
  53. Support. IMHO, we should allow people to decide exactly what information about their editing they want to be easily accessible. I feel the contributions list is perfectly fine, but once you've started organizing and analyzing it like the edit counter does, I feel it's crossed the boundary past which editors should have to decide whether they want it visible. (I did decide to opt in: others may not feel comfortable with doing so, and I think we should respect that and not remove the ability to choose.) Double sharp (talk) 04:42, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
  54. Support. Like many others, I have opted in – or, at least, I did to the X tools. The data may be public, but that doesn't mean that all aggregates and analyses should also be public. I doubt that anyone has illusions about their privacy, and anyone with even a trivial amount of technical knowledge knows that such tools could be independently programmed. However, we're not talking about random third-party tools here; we're talking about the official tool, and it should recognize both users' concerns and global consensus. Normally, I'd scoff at such idealistic ideas, but, in this area, I believe that Wikipedia should be a model for the rest of the Internet. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 07:00, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
  55. Support: Echoing Matthiaspaul above (number 38 in comments). Fylbecatulous talk 13:51, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
  56. Support: Wikipedia (English) should maintain transparency for data it collects on user editing frequency and how that editing frequency data, identified with a user name, is publicly displayed. At the present, there is no such explanation, so even finding out how to opt-in, and what that means, is a hit-or-miss proposition. Until such explanation is easily available to a new user, opt-in must be the default; otherwise there is no informed consent. Once such an explanation is prominently displayed in a post to every user talk page, then and only then, after a few months, is a change to opt-out supportable. It is not sufficient to say 'the information is already public'; even though the raw data about user editing frequency is at present publicly available in a technical sense, it is effectively not available to the vast majority of editors, users, or 'investigators'. I am 'opted-in', but for my particular situation, I could not think of a reason for not doing so. Others could be in a different situation; I do not wish to decided for others; neither do I expect Wikipedia to decide. - Neonorange (talk) 06:17, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
  57. Support: I think I opted in, but I don't see why logged-in users who haven't opted in should be presumed or required to allow people get free analysis on them. I can see why an admin might be able to do this on non-opt-in users, and I can see how it might be occasionally useful for vandalism or conflict-of-interest patrollers to see other users' interests or patterns easily, particularly from anonymous IP addresses, but the occasional usefulness is not important enough that it should be easy for anyone to get it about all registered users all the time. It shouldn't be automatically made easy enough that people start assuming they can go to a tool and substitute trivia statistics for editors' actual behavior in contributions. Also, automatic availability lowers the barrier for discourteous privacy compromises: Contributors often work on articles they are familiar with, since they can discern reliable sources, and often this relates to geography, field of work, and institutions attended. With this article analysis tool, it is very easy for lazy busybodies to guess contributors' hometowns and other off-wiki attributes. We should continue to make sure that busybodies have to think about whether it's worth the effort to go figure it out by looking at actual edit history with real edit summaries, instead of just handing it to them. Those users, that don't have the experience to make an informed opinion of an editor from a contribution history the old fashioned way, probably shouldn't be given a free way to draw half-informed assumptions about other users. --Closeapple (talk) 10:38, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
    To put my concerns in another simpler way: Someone can go to a landfill and find people's documents every night; but that doesn't mean everyone's paperwork from the trash should be posted on a website every day because it's "already public". Privacy is important even when not in absolute situations: There is a grey area in which, even though some raw data is easily available, and some resulting output is logically feasible from that raw data, the result shouldn't be made easy enough that it looks like the Wikipedia community endorses that sort of output. --Closeapple (talk) 11:02, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
    Our system logs are meant to retain things. Landfills are meant to dispose of things. There's no comparison. — Scott • talk 23:01, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
  58. Support: K@rl 14:36, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
  59. Support - As much as possible the data should belong to the editor Drowninginlimbo (talk) 18:15, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
  60. Support. Most editors aren't even aware of the tool, and (as has been said above) Wikipedia should assume that its editors deserve/want maximum privacy unless and until they elect to give it up. If you want don't care, you can opt-in. If you do care, then your privacy will have been grossly violated, for every second before you're opted out (which has to be after you're even aware of being in). There is no excuse for that systematic violation of the privacy of pretty much all Wikipedia editors. Also, people tend to underestimate, and frankly have no idea of, the consequences of the availability of data about them.--ZarlanTheGreen (talk) 00:37, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
    You make some grandiose statements ('gross and systematic violation of privacy') but you don't explain or argument them. You indicate Wikipedia should assume that its editors deserve/want maximum privacy yet Wikipedia's privacy policy clearly states that "Anyone with Internet access (..) may edit the publicly editable pages of these sites with or without logging in as a registered user. By doing this, editors create a published document, and a public record of every word added, subtracted, or changed." and "User contributions are also aggregated and publicly available. User contributions are aggregated according to their registration and login status. Data on user contributions, such as the times at which users edited and the number of edits they have made, are publicly available via user contributions lists, and in aggregated forms published by other users." (emphasis mine). Seems to me this tool is perfectly in line with Wikipedia's privacy policy, so unless it's the privacy policy itself that you object to it's not clear from your comment what those 'gross violations of privacy' are.--Wolbo (talk) 09:19, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
    Your talk of "grandiose statements" is not really in line with the rules about loaded words/weasel words ...but to deal with the important stuff: I'm supposed to give a brief summary of my reasons, not write a book on the issue. Your argument that these details can be accessed in other ways is, while perfectly true, not really valid. Numerous people have, in this section, already pointed out the flaws in that argument, so I wont bother to do so.--ZarlanTheGreen (talk) 20:29, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
  61. Support. This is the first time I ever heard of such function. I understand some people's desire to share everything in the most convenient way possible, but PLEASE remember, there are some of us who view this as privacy and feel strongly about it. I'm one of those who are "under the illusion" that even if the raw data is already avaible, most people wouldn't manually search pages and pages of edit history just for the kick of it. (If you could write a program to do that, good for you.) But seriously, try to show some respect for your more privacy-oriented editors.--Gene2010 (talk) 04:12, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
  62. Support.--Emeritus (talk) 19:50, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
  63. Support. I think users should be able to choose what others see about them. I opted in because I didn't really care about who looks at my edits (everybody can, for God's sake!), but some people might be quite concerned at who looks at the pages they like to frequent, and being forced to have it displayed is like telling the world all the pages on your watchlist. Of course, I'd support the Opt-out option as well, but I can only pick one. --k6ka (talk | contribs) 01:51, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
  64. Support, --He3nry (talk) 12:36, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
  65. Support. "we are all anonymous contributors" - No, I'm not. --Martina Nolte Disk. 15:30, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
  66. Support. IW 16:17, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
  67. Weak support per privacy concerns, under the presumption that statistics are still recorded if you want to access them later (if that's not the case, treat my vote as a weak support for opt-out). This feature really ought to be better advertised, though. Tezero (talk) 05:13, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
  68. Support, because of strong privacy concerns. Who wants to use this tool should opt-in, but don't force others. --El bes (talk) 08:09, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
  69. Support. --Eingangskontrolle (talk) 08:12, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
  70. Support -----<)kmk(>--- (talk) 18:07, 16 April 2014 (UTC) let the editors be in control, how much of their meta data is publicly available
  71. Support with qualifications. Here's the big qualification: We need to oppose in the strongest possible terms the villainous and despicable idea that countries are entitled to regulate what people put on the Internet in a second country, merely because it's available in the first country. We are subject to the laws that apply in Florida and California, period. We should not offer any respect whastsoever to any claim that German law applies, because any such claim deserves our utter contempt.
    That said, just because there is no valid law stopping us from doing something, doesn't mean we should. And just because, as Technical13 correctly notes, it's not hard to provide a tool that gives access to that information, doesn't mean it has to be us. --Trovatore (talk) 19:05, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
  72. Support. -- It is fine as it is: opt in. I do not think we can reliably predict the effects for people around the world of making this information public. Plus, thousands will not be aware if we change this. Let's be cautious. Though the raw data is public, the analysis is not. Superp (talk) 07:12, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
    Your last sentence does not appear to be in line with Wikipedia's privacy policy which states that "User contributions are also aggregated and publicly available".--Wolbo (talk) 10:22, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
  73. Support, reasons been mentioned above -- Kays (talk) 15:48, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
  74. Support --Windharp (talk) 10:15, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
  75. Support --An-d (talk) 10:34, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
  76. Support --NebY There's a substantial difference between the accessibility of raw information on each individual edit and making comprehensive reports available to all at the touch of a button. This is similar to the principles operating in the UK under the Data Protection Act 1998, by which the duty of an organisation to disclose the data held on an individual is restricted to the data readily accessible on the organisation's systems (e.g. by existing high-level reporting facilities) rather than that which can be extracted by skilled low-level searches. Also, we do not know what further analyses and reports will be made available but for which we are now being asked to provide blanket approval on behalf of all users. NebY (talk) 14:04, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
    Comment It seems to me that (like very many of the posts in this category) this completely misunderstands the point. You quote regulations which appear to be about disclosing to users what non-public data an organisation holds about them. But the discussion here is nothing to do with non-public data! It concerns information which is already public (at the "low level" as it were); because of some bizarre ideas in Germany, it is felt that governments should attempt to restrict the logical inferences which someone can make from already public information. (This seeks to impose tyrannical restriction of thought, actually.) Wikipedia has a tool which can produce summary statistics from the raw public data: this discussion is whether people should be able to opt out of operation of this tool on public data relating to them. That's all. The data is already public; anyone can extract any information which can be inferred from it, and can already go to an external site such as wikichecker where the same "processed" information is available. So the "opt in" or "opt out" discussed here only gives a completely false sense of having "kept something private", which itself seems to me to be misleading at best. Imaginatorium (talk) 15:13, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
    Don't worry, I've read the arguments and understood that point - but it is not alone as "the point". There are others, such as questions of added value and accessibility. You'll have read about them already, above. So in adding my !vote, I've simply addressed them in a slightly different way by noting a similarity with principles of reporting and analysis as it applies to non-public data. I should add that I am saddened and a little shocked that you would describe German law as seeking "to impose tyrannical restriction of thought, actually"; it does not suggest a rounded and balanced view. NebY (talk) 15:54, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
  77. Support This information is of little more than passing interest to legitimate users, and mainly only to the editor who's data it is. In case of dispute (socks, etc) the required information can be generated quite easily. Advertising to the world the times of the day, and the days of the week, that a particular editor is likely to be at home is not a good idea. We are not all anonymous you know. All the best, Rich Farmbrough, 22:30, 18 April 2014 (UTC).
    "We are not all anonymous"? None of us are anonymous. Not even, so-called, "anonymous" editors are really anonymous, as you can see their IP (in some way, that actually reveals more about the editor than an account name, even one that is a real name), but anyone with an account, cannot be called anonymous in any sense. Pseudonymity is light-years away from being the same thing as anonymity. We are not anonymous. Thus it is even more important to protect our privacy.--ZarlanTheGreen (talk) 21:43, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
    With all due respect, you're preaching to the wrong choir. This RfC is in regards to the User Analysis Tool based on the original tool by X!, and does not provide date/time statistical information. There is another separate tool known as WikiChecker which is run by a third-party which has nothing to do with the User Analysis Tool that this RfC is discussing, which pinpoints exactly when a user's edits are made, and their weekly editing habits. If your argument is that having date/time statistics on people is harmful, then your arguments are being put in the wrong place. Feel free to contact the hoster of WikiChecker here for these concerns, but I don't think your points hold valid for this RfC. --benlisquareT•C•E 09:42, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
  78. Support Daonguyen95 (talk) 18:16, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
  79. Support Diderot's dreams (talk) 22:59, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
  80. Support --Olei (talk) 20:46, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
  81. Support I can't think of any legitimate reason why that information would be necessary for another user to know. So the default should be to retain each editor's privacy unless they explicitly give permission otherwise. And I say this as a person who opted in years ago. VanIsaacWScont 06:36, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
    Dealing with abuse and disruption? Allowing for precise critique during Request for Adminship, as required by due process? Understanding someone's circles of expertise a little better? There are plenty of valid reasons for this tool. Simply because some people might not have a good use for it doesn't mean that it applies for every single person. Not everybody will ever need to use a condom in their entire life, however that doesn't mean that condoms should not be manufactured. In fact, preventing this tool from being used effectively assists disruptive editors, as it makes it less easy to identify and critique bad faith editors. --benlisquareT•C•E 09:52, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
    If you are dealing with abuse and disruption, the breakdown of edits by namespace and month is completely useless; surely the contribution history has the actual information you'd want. And if you think that this sort of thing is necessary to an RfA - I'm not sure what you can learn that isn't found in the regular breakdown of contributions by namespace that would be germane - then make it one of the requirements for people submitting themselves for adminship. But that's pretty flimsy and far too rare to justify exposing everybody's editing patterns for all to see without their permission. VanIsaacWScont 10:35, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
  82. Support per SlimVirgin. Coat of Many Colours (talk) 09:40, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
  83. Support Qwfp (talk) 11:41, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
  84. Support  @xqt 08:13, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
  85. Support per above Haymaker (talk) 11:38, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
  86. Support as this edit counter is probably used more than any other edit counter out there, and revealing all the aggregate data could raise privacy concerns for some editors. What if they have edited controversial articles in the past, regretted it, and now don't want that to show up in the "top edited pages" section? Even if all this information is publicly available doesn't necessarily mean we should make it so easily accessible. Altamel (talk) 00:30, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
  87. Support While it is true that user privacy isn't directly affected by the edit counter (edits are generally publicly traceable anyway), it does provide a simple graphical representation which can be quickly evaluated by others. This can be very useful, but some users may have legitimate reasons to wish to suppress the automatic generation of such information. Not to cater for the wishes of such users may result in them resorting to creating illegitimate alternative accounts, which shouldn't be encouraged. -- Trevj (talk · contribs) 08:30, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
    Support per all above comments. Sir Lothar (talk) 11:15, 23 April 2014 (UTC) wrong section Sir Lothar (talk) 11:23, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
  88. Support per SlimVirgin. It should be made clear to users what the options are and how to select them. --Ben Best 13:40, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
  89. support, even security through obscurity is a (minor) form of security. While 3rd party tools may do what they like, the default linked tool from wikipedia should have an opt-in.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 16:45, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
  90. Support. For slightly better protection of our privacy. -- UKoch (talk) 19:44, 26 April 2014 (UTC)
  91. Support. Shurakai (talk) 21:38, 26 April 2014 (UTC)
  92. Support per SlimVirgin and Aschmidt. Individual users should have this degree of control over the data about their activities. This isn't something that some Wikipedians should be able to deprive of others simply because they like having access to data; Wikipedia should err on the side of respecting the individual user's privacy rights. –Prototime (talk · contribs) 03:48, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
  93. Support. I know that the stats revealed by the edit counter are mainly innocuous, but considering that the opt-in procedure has worked well for all these years, I believe people should not have a problem with the procedure that a rudimentary search cannot fix. I see no reason to change how it works, especially since this is a matter that hardly affects the people that want to see their stats, and affects people that don't want their stats revealed a great deal. We should choose the path affects people the least, rather than choosing a path affecting the least people (Subtle difference). Shashwat986 → talk 06:21, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
  94. Support. I think while this data is not the most potentiality harmful, it is important to value users wishes concerning their own privacy. This option should not be taken away from the users. NikaGirl (talk) 22:10, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
  95. Support - No good reason not to. Per SlimVirgin an others. Garion96 (talk) 09:02, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
  96. Support - As per above Hughesdarren (talk) 11:25, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
  97. Support per SlimVirgin Qit16 (talk) 17:26, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
  98. Support any option should be opt-in if it (negatively) affects privacy. mthinkcpp (talk) 17:52, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
  99. Support Personally, I don't care if people know my edit stats -- with the old toolserver anyone could see them -- & German law has no more relevance in the US than US law in Germany -- which IMHO is a very good thing for both countries. Nevertheless, I support this option for one simple reason: a non-trivial share of Wikipedians want to keep this information about themselves private. So why not respect their wishes? -- llywrch (talk) 18:06, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
  100. strong support per SlimVirgin, Llywrch, NikaGirl and others. Though all editing information is available, as is shrilly repeated many times below, there is no reason why we should make it even easier to access and analyse and, who knows, draw harmful conclusions from. Cheers, LindsayHello 08:49, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
  101. Support As Wiki is an open place where we can track and follow so many issues and users. The fact that users can use non-identifiable user names, the stats should be opt-in to allow those who use their IDs to have some bit of choice. It has worked until now, no reason to change. Juda S. Engelmayer (talk) 20:33, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
  102. Support Even though I wish everyone would opt in, and even though it's not clear to me that anyone would really be harmed by making the counter opt-in. The reason is that there is clearly a perception of harm on the part of a significant number of people. We should not needlessly alienate these valued users. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 13:23, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
  103. Support because as per SlimVirgin et al changing the rules halfway and posting revealing analysis retroactively is not ethical. Also in practice providing a ready made analysis often matters more than providing raw data. Siawase (talk) 19:05, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
  104. Support- I don't see much benefit to changing the status quo, but I do foresee some potential privacy issues with 'Optout'. I'm strongly opposed to the 'No opt' option for this same reason.- MrX 01:39, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
  105. Support Opt-out is not an option, unless you make that choice a mandatory step when creating a new user. Oh, and on the next login for everyone. "If you don't know you have a choice, you don't have a choice" is something that seems to never occur to the rule makers about the ruled. Changing to "No Opt" would create a press dream topic: "WP says NSA okay!" Shenme (talk) 03:41, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
  106. Support I don't mind being forced in. I'm sure others do mind being forced in. Nobody using wikipedia benefits from people who don't want the report pubic being public, only people seeking to mine data do. Essentially I can't see a benefit to making the details freely, publicly reported. If we do switch to OptOut every user should receive a message and an email telling them of the change and giving them the option to 1 click opt out. SPACKlick (talk) 09:31, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
  107. Support, per all of the above, namely Slim Virgin, John Cline, and Rich Farmbrough. Joefromrandb (talk) 13:56, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
  108. Support, as per above and call for input. Supercount links directly from the contribs page which may be uncomfortable for privacy seeking editors. We already have wikichecker for that, and there is no need to host the facility on WMF servers. If it makes some editors feel uncomfortable, they should have the choice. Editors who are comfortable can easily opt in. There is clearly no harm in coming across an editor who has not opted in, and no need to force one into opting in. Regarding the "illusion" of privacy, there is the privacy policy to clearly explain what happens with data. -- Fauzan✆ talk ✉ email 18:54, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Replace it with the optout requirement

  1. Support The information can be found without the edit counter, why not just allow the edit counter to do its thang? pbp 23:45, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support: I'm globally opted in, and I really like seeing the different charts of my editing activity, but I doubt that everyone's with me on that. Letting users opt in or out doesn't really affect anyone other than them and anyone else wanting to see their edits, so let them decide for themselves. I think that opting out is better because then they see what the tool can do before deciding whether or not they like it. Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 00:23, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support (with removing the option entirely as my second choice): I can see that some users might feel threatened by this tool. That the opt-in system ever went into place is a testament to that. But I think the opt-in requirement is putting a finger on the scale. I prefer allowing opt-out for people who feel threatened by use of this tool. But I am concerned that allowing opt-out could lead to an inference that doing so is to cover up bad conduct. Anyway, I prefer allowing people more options. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 02:43, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support I just opted in to see what the fuss was about - the stats are largely innocuous, esp. because most of them are very generic, and I remember seeing tools that aggregate this info on an hourly basis, so there's very little point in pretending these aggregates are somehow so sensitive that they need to be closed off by default. At the same time, both the monthly stats and the all-time top 10 lists are somewhat susceptible to misinterpretation - it's fine to let individual editors opt out. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 09:06, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support It's just security through obscurity, as T13 points out, but if we're talking about HR checking to see how much you're editing during work hours, a little obscurity is a good thing. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 10:05, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
    Noopt as second choice, though. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 13:01, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
  6. Support. There are many good reasons for editors to make this info visible and I think they should. BUT, we want to devolve that decision down to the editor, I think. As a general rule, "opts" (opt-in or opt-out) are good in a system if you can allow it without serious negative consequences (as I think we can here), because 1) it's psychologically beneficial to give the user control over her environment, and 2) it implements flexibility -- if there are things we haven't thought of, such as Sarek's boss-tracking-you scenario above (which hadn't occurred to me), the user isn't stymied. Herostratus (talk) 19:56, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  7. Support At least have the ability to opt-out but otherwise it should be enabled by default since the information is available through other means anyway. -- GreenC 15:21, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
  8. Support I generally favor opt-in policies. This seems like a good addition. Capitalismojo (talk) 16:10, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
  9. Support As others have pointed out, this data is public anyway. As Jackmcbarn poined out, anyone could write a tool of their own which doesn't even bother to ask (it's even possible someone has already done so). On the other hand, people may still have their reasons for opting out. Also, SarekOfVulcan's comment hadn't occurred to me. Interesting. Why not just let people opt in or out whenever they choose? Mburdis (talk) 02:43, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
  10. Support this information should be made available without a complicated opt-in process smatrese (talk) 09:54, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
  11. Support It's useful to have statistical information about other users, but many users will simply not know this feature and not opt in at all. Making the availability of the information the default, but allowing informed users to withhold it for privacy reasons seems a fair possibility. (Thus an "optout OPTION", not requirement. Or did I get something totally wrong here?) G Purevdorj (talk) 15:28, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
  12. Support The edits are public, as is the data about them, however if a user wishes to make it more difficult to aggregate that data for whatever reason that should be granted as a courtesy. Prefer no-opt as a second choice. Tazerdadog (talk) 20:22, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
  13. Support Who thinks that it will protect them should be able to opt-out these kind of aggregation tools. Opt-out should however be stored on a non-public place to prevent "let's look at people who have opted out". -- Rillke (talk) 11:01, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
  14. Support --S Philbrick(Talk) 17:44, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
  15. Support I personally have no problem with being opted in, but I see no downside in letting others opt out, as long as it's made clear that the information can be found in other ways. I am ideologically against removing options that some people want and don't hurt anything. — trlkly 23:22, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
  16. Support I would prefer opt-out to no opt, but would be willing to accept no opt since it appears the majority are leaning that direction at this point. Opt-in makes the edit counter effectively useless. --Shawn K. Quinn (talk) 17:58, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
  17. Support Jackmcbarn and others below do offer some good points about transparency, Wikipedia's policies towards it, et cetera, but I'm sort of leaning towards this, so would it be weak support???/ ish?whaveter. Also highly agree with Rillke's point, as storing users who have opted out for privacy reasons on a public database would be, to put it nicely, rather dumb. ~Helicopter Llama~ 21:04, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
  18. Support I also support the option for removing opt-in requirements. Allowing opt out could answer safety concerns by some users. Blue Rasberry (talk) 01:37, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
  19. Support This is a good compromise for editors who are moderately concerned about their privacy. The majority will be in by default and anyone who is seriously concerned about their privacy either have solid aliases or don't make public edits. Pikkusiili (talk) 07:42, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
  20. Support Wiki is open, this information can be gathered by just reading the contribs of the user. No real security gain by not having it on. Gaijin42 (talk) 21:31, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
  21. Support since this information is already publicly available, however one should be allowed to opt-out if they are concerned about their privacy. Ahmer Jamil Khan (talk) 13:42, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
  22. Support This is information that is already universally available without restriction. It's just a counter. Anyone who chooses may add up the edits of anyone they please by themselves--this tool gives no new capabilities, and breaches no existing privacy. . I recognize that in many instances involving mass surveillance the practical impossibility of compiling usable data without specialized automatic tools is a protection; that the protection is being eroded by technology is a misfortune, but an inevitable one irretrievably linked to the use of technology itself. But this is not the case for any of the material here. Even for someone like me with over 100,000 edits, it is not difficult to see manually or certainly with a spreadsheet what I have been working on, all the way back to the beginning. We are accustomed as a usual matter, not an investigative exception or special case, to examining in edit -by-edit detail candidates for admin in this manner. This is not correlation, this is simply counting. If one wishes to get technical about EU law, see article 3.1: it would seem to forbid even the manual counting of the data. Fortunately, as for jurisdiction, see article 4. Even more fortunately, anyone who does not wish to be tracked has already a very sound and widely practiced way to prevent both manual & automatic tracking: to edit under an anonymous pseudonym. DGG ( talk ) 04:35, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Remove all opt requirements completely

  1. Support You're not really hiding anything by keeping these tools from working. It's security through obscurity. Anyone could easily write a tool of their own that doesn't honor it at all. Jackmcbarn (talk) 23:56, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
  2. Support even though I'm globally opted-in. There is no reason to add a choice here, it's not like anyone can't access this data regardless of settings. Telling people it is opt-in implies that if they don't opt-in the data is secure and no-one can access it, which would be blatantly false. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 00:13, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  3. Support Even though I never bothered to opt in. Otherwise agree with above comments. PaleAqua (talk) 00:22, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
    The two strongest arguments that I currently see from the other side ( raw data of a users contributions list vs synthesis of that data ) and the related ( the organization that provides the tool being WMF ), do not seem to me to be strong enough to cover the privacy risks of giving an undue impression of privacy. There are other tools and ways that provide this data already easily, so telling users that they can opt out ( or must opt in ) is very misleading. Further if the concern is WMF providing the tools vs 3rd parties providing it, seems more a question on should the tool be offered than on if it should be opt-in. PaleAqua (talk) 21:10, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support → Call me Hahc21 00:24, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  5. Support per Technical 13. I'm opted-in and I respect the desire of others for privacy but if there is no actual privacy we shouldn't pretend there is. Chris Troutman (talk) 00:54, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  6. Support - This is a mechanism for the examination of tendentious editing and abuse of multiple accounts. Transparency is good. Carrite (talk) 00:55, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  7. Support - This is basic information which should be available to every editor for every other editor. Hiding it makes little sense. BMK (talk) 01:02, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  8. Support - Anonymous ticker, the data obfuscated at the public level. No reason to have anyone opt out. --MASEM (t) 01:04, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  9. Support, begrudgingly. I admit there's no way around it but I just don't like it, to be quite frank. Nonetheless, I suppose I've got nothing to hide, I'm just a tad leary about people being able to browse my editing history THAT easily. I'd rather make 'em work for it but I suppose that's not going to happen, so might as well just bite the bullet and get it over with. LazyBastardGuy 01:06, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  10. Support - I genuinely see no benefits to being opt out since anyone anywhere can view your contributions, There's no privacy involved as you're only revealing what you're editing really.. -→Davey2010→→Talk to me!→ 01:06, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  11. Support Since edit histories are public, any information derived from them is likewise available to the world. DavidLeighEllis (talk) 01:09, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  12. Support per above. GenQuest "Talk to Me" 03:18, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  13. Support - If you don't want people to know what you're doing, don't do it on a website that publicly logs almost every action. Mr.Z-man 03:20, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  14. Support. No one should have (or be encouraged to think they have) an expectation their edit history is private here on Wikipedia. Msnicki (talk) 03:39, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  15. Support – The info is not private in the slightest, and there's no reason we should be treating it as such. TCN7JM 04:10, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  16. It's public information, and anyone can make a tool on labs to generate the graphs, anyway... --Rschen7754 04:14, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  17. Support per Technical 13 above. —Bruce1eetalk 06:31, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  18. Support -- John of Reading (talk) 07:16, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  19. Support. It's all public information. It could be argued that an opt-in system makes it harder to track one's contributions, since there's no existing tool available, but that's not true - anyone could put together some code for a crawler, upload it to Github, and nobody could do anything about that. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 08:02, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  20. Support – I see no privacy issue, it's simply an aggregation of someone's editing history which is public information. Also if the German privacy law was the reason for having the optin then that no longer applies.--Wolbo (talk) 08:04, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  21. Support It's available via other means, you're not "protecting" anything by providing an illusion of privacy. —Locke Cole • t • c 09:29, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  22. Support. This data is public already. — Keφr 09:43, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  23. Support. This data is public in every conceivable sense. — Scott • talk 10:55, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  24. Support per Technical 13 and Mr. Z-man above. Elizabeth Linden Rahway (talk) 11:29, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  25. Support per all the opinions above, especially Mr. Z-man's. --Checco (talk) 11:32, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  26. Support – Technical 13 does make a good point – the data isn't going to not exist if you don't opt in. It's still there. By the way, it's about time that usage data became available for IP users, too. Epicgenius (talk) 12:53, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  27. Support per Mr.Z-man; that we should be obscuring publicly available data so that some editors can edit when they shouldn't be seems counter intuitive. Sam Walton (talk) 12:57, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  28. Support When talking about privacy, we need to distinguish between the account and the person controlling the account. That we protect the person's privacy is a given. But it makes no sense to protect the account, Wikipedia is a public untertaking. Also, as has been stated before, opting is ineffective. Finally, opting would make getting potentially useful statistics more cumbersome. Paradoctor (talk) 13:53, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  29. Support Edits to wikimedia sites are public. All this does is make a piechart out of the existing stats that ANYONE can see by clicking on the contributions of any given user. There is no privacy issue. If one imagines that there is such an issue then they should not use wikis--Cailil talk 14:05, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  30. Support per Technical 13. --AmaryllisGardener talk 14:32, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  31. Support. The information is occasionally useful against sockpuppets and agenda-driven editors, and does no harm to any other editors. Seanwal111111 (talk) 15:42, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  32. Support per others: this data is all public. Michael Barera (talk) 17:02, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  33. Support: To me, having an opt-in requirement only creates confusion without any security or privacy benefits – the stats data is public and other utilities can display them, such as the WikiChecker which even shows daily edit stats and overall daily/hourly breakdowns. Thus, currently there's no "security through obscurity", privacy improvement or whatever achieved by the opt-in requirement. — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 17:06, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  34. Support Per Dsimic right above. Regards SoWhy 19:32, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  35. Support As an opt-in, it's all publicly available data anyway. Whisternefet 19:36, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  36. Support Per others; no privacy issue present. APerson (talk!) 20:27, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  37. Support Not a privacy issue, this data is readily available elsewhere and there is nothing sensitive about the data anyway.Blethering Scot 20:41, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  38. Support -- privacy concerns are bogus, transparency is good. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 21:18, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  39. Support - (a) anybody can already see anybody else's contributions in their entirety as part of the technical and social foundation of Wikipedia; (b) anybody can download everything, including contribution histories which can be analyzed in much greater detail than this tool provides; (c -- least convincing but still relevant) everybody has the choice to edit anonymously if he or she does not want a persistent contrib history. --— Rhododendrites talk |  21:42, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  40. Support - Per above, specifically supports 2, 5, 13, and similar sentiments. None of this is secret, and an opt-in/out system only makes it more tedious for people to find the information. Sven Manguard Wha? 22:22, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  41. Sven has it. NW (Talk) 23:07, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  42. Support per Sven. Royalbroil 00:29, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
  43. Support let it all hang out. Privacy is the opposite of editing Wikipedia. Jim.henderson (talk) 00:42, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
  44. Support All the information is contained inside your contribution page, so preventing this to run is uneeded as it is already show elsewhere TheMesquito (talk) 04:01, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
  45. Support There really is no reason to continue hiding this, as the information has been available for as long as we have kept contribution history. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 04:18, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
  46. Support There is no privacy issue here since users have already agreed, by editing Wikipedia, that their edits belong to the public domain. All that is happening is that useful and pertinent summary information about editors is being made unnecessarily difficult to access. --Epipelagic (talk) 08:29, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
  47. Support Transparency is important. SilkTork ✔Tea time 09:25, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
  48. Support I the opt-in redundant. Even opt-out would be better than that. No requirement of opt-in should be ideal. DiptanshuTalk 10:50, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
  49. Support Theres no reason why this should not be here. Its all recorded in the "contributions" anyway.--JOJ Hutton 10:59, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
  50. Support As with others here, I see the opt-in/opt-out choices as somewhat redundant, given that the data are available anyway. Opting out is only really giving an illusion of privacy, and transparency on a collaborative project like Wikipedia is a Good Thing™. -- Scjessey (talk) 12:51, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
  51. Support The opt-in requirement is only there because of Germany's very strange privacy laws, which make no sense at all. —Tom Morris (talk) 13:27, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
  52. Support Opt-in requirement serves no useful purpose. Coretheapple (talk) 13:54, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
  53. Support Opt-in implies that if they don't opt-in, no one can access their edit activities, which just isn't true. Also, Wikipedia is a public endeavor (at account level), by definition.--FeralOink (talk) 14:53, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
  54. Support Transparency in relation to edit stats is hardly too much to ask when we are all anonymous contributors. Sarah777 (talk) 15:59, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
  55. Support It's available information, I see no point in making edits less transparent/harder to view sensibly. Dougweller (talk) 16:03, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
  56. Support It's available in any event, there's an implicit agreement to it when creating an account. --Richhoncho (talk) 18:22, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
  57. Support The information is useful, and is available elsewhere anyway, so it might as well be easily accessible to everyone. MichiHenning (talk) 20:25, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
  58. Support - all this information is publicly available. I mean, seriously, look at WikiChecker, which records when you edit down to the hour (note: I'm not sure if that's opt-in or not, actually, since I was opted in before I found that). Compared to that, the information that was opt-in in X!'s editor seems much less "dangerous", eh? ansh666 21:16, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
  59. Support Roberticus talk 22:37, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
  60. Support per Technical 13 AIRcorn (talk) 01:08, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
  61. Support, albeit reluctantly. I opted-in (I have a bit of an obsession with monitoring my edits), but I can understand why some people want to opt-out. Nevertheless, there really isn't anything to hide, and even without the tool, it's still possible (albeit more difficult) to get the needed data. It'd be much easier if the opt-in was just removed entirely. Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 01:23, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
  62. Support I'm not sure how this would cause any privacy issues. Northern Antarctica (₵) 02:21, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
  63. Support already by using these wikis you have agreed that what you do is made public. There is nothing really to hide anymore. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 03:23, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
  64. Support per Technical 13. There is no expectation of privacy on Wikis, and there shouldn't be. If you attach edits to your real name, you can't have that simply undone. You can use an alias if you'd like, and I imagine that's what most people do. There are contribution pages, watchlists, etc. There is not only the capabilities to aggregate this information outside of Wikipedia, but directly inside it as well. We shouldn't pretend that users should have any expectation that these simple statistics are "private", because they aren't. Those "rights" are already non-existent, so making it opt-out is rather silly. --Nicereddy (talk) 03:45, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
  65. Support per Technical 13 and Mr.Z-Man. This information isn't being hidden when you're preventing just one tool from running, when there are other (less convenient) methods of getting this information already. Having an opt-in policy for privacy reasons is the equivalent of locking the front door to a building for security purposes when the building has no back wall. You're not providing security, you're just making it more of a pain by making people walk around. -- Atama頭 04:29, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
  66. Support per all of the above. Aggregate public information is still public. Xaxafrad (talk) 08:43, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
  67. Support Everyone should be able to see everything from the edit counter when they click on it. By having a "have to opt in" message, people are confused and wonder why they need it. With no opt-in, everyone gets access to everything on the edit counter and no questions would be raised.Springyboy (talk) 10:49, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
  68. Support Per multiple of the above statements. Having the ability to opt-out, or requiring opt-in, implies that the data will remain private if the person has opted-out or not opted-in. That provides a false impression to people as to the privacy status of the data. — Makyen (talk) 10:54, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
  69. Support For transparency of already public data. Fredlyfish4 (talk) 15:21, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
  70. Support Agreed with just about everyone. We shouldn't illude uninformed users that their editing history can be secure and hidden from view. The wiki is by nature open and transparent, and I find it somewhat counterintuitive to imply that isn't the case — MusikAnimal talk 15:33, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
  71. Support Harsh (talk) 16:43, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
  72. Support Int21h (talk) 17:19, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
  73. Support The problem with the opt-in or opt-out system is that it favors more technically capable users that can easily get the data and do similar analyses with the data anyways. By making this tool available for everyone to use, this would level the playing field in the edit count analysis process. – FenixFeather (talk)(Contribs) 20:05, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
  74. Support The opt-in / opt-out suggests that there is some sort of privacy option, where we all know that the data is publicly available, should one wish to look for it. Therefore I see no sense in it.  Ronhjones  (Talk) 00:15, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
  75. Support This is public info, so no need for opting. 2Flows (talk) 01:21, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
  76. Support Providing opting options creates the false implication that there are privacy controls. To create such a misleading impression is problematic; let's avoid implied misrepresentation. —Quondum 02:51, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
  77. Support. I'd prefer an opt-out option if that option really worked, but since it can't, we shouldn't pretend this level of editor privacy can be maintained. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 03:27, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
  78. Support Attribution of edits is a feature, not a bug. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:28, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
  79. Support per all the above Sprinkler21 (talk) 04:44, 7 April 2014 (UTC)Sprinkler21
  80. Support - I see no reason to add extra hurdles for access to otherwise publicly available information. I don't see this as an issue of privacy, but convenience. Inks.LWC (talk) 04:53, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
  81. Support per all above. The data is public anyway, can be looked up without the counter. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 05:31, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
  82. Support Edit counters do little else then aggregate contribution data that is already available to the general public. There are several off-wiki edit counters that can easily summarize the same data and provide statistics such as by-hour editing breakdowns, most edited pages and about everything else. And as other people mentioned - creating such a tool using the API is quite doable. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs) 06:19, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
  83. Support I would strongly oppose keeping the opt-in. Anasuya.D (talk) 10:05, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
  84. Support More transparency makes it easier for the "good guys" and harder for bad actors.Jacona (talk) 11:46, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
  85. Support per Technical 13. – Smyth\talk 12:45, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
  86. Support I agree with all the arguments for getting rid of opt-in. If you don't want your edits to be "tracked", you probably shouldn't be contributing to the wiki. — Frεcklεfσσt | Talk 15:31, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
  87. Support I agree with Technical 13. I am One of Many (talk) 18:54, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
  88. Support as it's simply an aggregator. Why bother? It only creates an illusion that this information somehow remains nonpublic. DeistCosmos (talk) 19:38, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
  89. Support Everyone is here voluntarily. If you want privacy, don't post in an open site. Sammy D III (talk) 21:46, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
  90. Support - My arguments (I have arrived at without reading all this) are already covered. Staszek Lem (talk) 01:21, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
  91. Support. There is no real way to completely hide publicly available information. Also, I've seen an experienced editor try to indict another editor on the basis of the accused's (opted-in) top-edited pages, while the accuser kept his own edit counter opted out, indicating in my mind that the accuser himself had something to hide. I'd rather remove all doubt and all inequality by having everyone and everything out in the open. Softlavender (talk) 05:07, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
  92. Support It helps us build up a picture of who the user is. Another good reason is transparency, one of the great things about Wikipedia. What is a good reason against? Privacy? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 10:55, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
  93. Support I really can't see the reason why this is an issue. I have opted in to make my edits transparent, I can remember when it was the default. Wee Curry Monster talk 11:37, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
  94. Support per all above. Graham87 12:49, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
  95. Support—I'm already opted in, but I support the NoOpt idea simply to avoid giving the false impression that opting out does something different or special with one's Wikipedia usage data. It does not. And the data can be easily located other ways. N2e (talk) 14:17, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
  96. Support - It isn't impossible for someone to write a script that circumvents the need for xtools and does the exact same thing, which makes an opt-in/out feature useless. With this in mind, we may as well get rid of the opt-in/out and save everyone the hassle of wasting their energy trying to write such third-party tools, so that their productive energy can be placed elsewhere. Nothing is ever kept secret, no matter what means are taken to ensure privacy, which means that we're better off letting everyone have equal capability of accessing this information, as opposed to only allowing an elite few capable of writing tools to hoard the information all to themselves. Furthermore, this project is intended to be open and transparent to begin with; people with something to hide really should be thinking twice about how they edit Wikipedia. --benlisquareT•C•E 15:08, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
  97. Support - There is nothing else that I can add that hasn't been added above already. Tony the Marine (talk) 19:58, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
  98. Support - Yes, please remove all opt requirements completely. I've opted-in, but I do not see a reason to give one a choice to opt-in or opt-out, privacy is a hoax here! Anupmehra -Let's talk! 21:56, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
  99. Support - Please remove all opt requirements. The information is useful in Wikipedia historical research. →StaniStani  23:26, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
  100. Support - WP:100, and more importantly, I've never felt that avoiding the counter provided much true privacy in practice. --j⚛e deckertalk 00:45, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
  101. Support: Making the edit counter opt-whatever provides the illusion of privacy, while hiding the fact that there's no real privacy. This is a bad thing. --Carnildo (talk) 00:55, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
  102. Support per Graham87...:-)..i.e. I agree with all 101 comments The Herald 10:14, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
  103. Support - People have access to the data anyway, seems uncontroversial really. Just makes it easier for all concerned, removes yet another hurdle to greater editor interactions. Acather96 (click here to contact me) 15:45, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
  104. Support public data anyway, no reason for us not to be able to access it through multiple tools, Sadads (talk) 15:58, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
  105. Support - Since there s no privacy anyway, I see no reason to support experienced users and leave all the others out in the rain Gott (talk) 21:28, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
  106. Support Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 22:05, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
  107. Support Matt Deres (talk) 23:11, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
  108. Support --Ralf Roletschek (talk) 11:55, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
  109. Support. Opt-in only provides an illusion of privacy. older ≠ wiser 12:06, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
  110. Support - this is public data, there is no privacy. -- KTC (talk) 12:59, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
  111. Support after all, it's all public information--anyone can go around checking people's edits manually, but this way is easier for everyone concerned. ;-) —₡lockery ₣airfeld ₰ 09:08, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
  112. Support Wikipedia is live publishing after all. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 15:28, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
  113. Support. I care – a lot! – about user privacy, so I thought about this issue very carefully. What I care about, specifically, is allowing users who so desire to protect our real-life identities while editing – as opposed to, for example, protecting users from accountability for adhering to policies and guidelines while editing. This proposal has no effect on privacy of editor identity. What it does is make it easier to track down information that is already public for those who wish to seek it out, about where a given editor makes edits. Making it easier can be helpful in dispute resolution and in evaluating candidates for additional permissions, but it doesn't make it easier to figure out who an editor is in real life. Someone who never reveals anything about their identity is at no further risk of employer scrutiny as a result of this proposal; the risk only comes if the editor chooses to make it possible for the employer to identify their user name. I always thought that the opposition to the edit counter information in some nations' laws was rather peculiar, and I don't see any harm in making this particular information more accessible. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:12, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
  114.    FDMS  4    17:15, 12 April 2014 (UTC): Such tools could be a great replacement for other tools providing less information about the user, and any opting would drastically reduce their usability as either most people would not care about it (opt-in) or there would be unpredictable gaps (opt-out).
  115. Support The most likely reason to want to opt out is to protect privacy, but as the information is already available elsewhere, this tool does nothing to impinge on any editor's privacy. Regards, Lynbarn (talk) 19:13, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
  116. Support – As per Mr.Z-man. –Tommy Kronkvist (talk) 20:08, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
  117. Support – I agree with Tryptofish and I care a lot about data privacy. This is public data and it's about time the opt requirements are completely removed. - tucoxn\talk 05:54, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
  118. Support – If information is public, it is public. The rest all comes down to the failure of Legal "Mind" to understand mathematics and logic. But as pointed out above, giving a false sense of "privacy" is certainly bad. Imaginatorium (talk) 06:50, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
  119. Support – This is not private data, and ways of making sense of it will only get more convenient and numerous over time. No use in overly-restricting it. If people are concerned about privacy, then the conversation should be about what information people can *not* share, or what information that is currently public might instead be private.--ragesoss (talk) 11:41, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
  120. Support - This information is not private and the aggregation of the information is similarly not private, as has been stated multiple times. If opting in or out is allowed, it should be stated explicitly in the tool that the information is still easily accessible elsewhere. Gamma Metroid (talk) 16:21, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
  121. Support - Either the information is public, and you can do what you want with it, or the information is private. In this case, the information is public; all the tool does is makes it easy to look it. Bilorv (talk) 19:35, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
  122. Support. the wub "?!" 22:26, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
  123. Support. Sensible. Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (Message me) 23:20, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
  124. Support.--Bbb23 (talk) 00:42, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
  125. Support. Benny White (talk) 23:18, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
  126. Support There is already too much anonymity here, and it's what allows the shocking POV bias that makes WP the laughingstock of academia. Gangs with admin friends own articles like IRL gangs own neighborhoods. If editors had to show positive ID, this would turn into a "real" (i.e., authoritative) encyclopedia in a week. As it is now, WP is good for looking up TV show characters and bird species, and useless for any topic that people have political opinions about. Verdana♥Bøld 01:16, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
  127. Support All information that should be made open to the public should be made public. We can't hide all information from everyone, and we shouldn't force editors to opt-in without their consent. Disclosing information to the public makes the tool more unbiased and allows anyone to see what he/she should know. Japanese Rail Fan (talk) 14:59, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
  128. Support What's there to hide? --Rsrikanth05 (talk) 16:51, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
  129. Support A user's edit history is public, and this tool makes it easier to look at. Opt requirements imply a user controls a level of privacy where none actually exists. --hmich176 18:50, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
  130. Support - per Technical 13 et. al. - if there is no actual privacy (and there isn't since all editors' editing histories are public), there's no reason to give the false impression that there is. Parsecboy (talk) 19:37, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
  131. Support [13] already displays this information for the English Wikipedia. I suppose there could be different rules on the different Wikimedia projects, e.g., if the German Wikipedians would like to have the optin option. Having a WMFlabs tool may yield better privacy because the server logs are under the control of WMF. — fnielsen (talk) 22:50, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
  132. Support Gloss • talk 23:04, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
  133. Tentative support The argument that this is public already makes a lot of sense, but choosing this option requires some ongoing attention that the tool doesn't retain information that would otherwise be made relatively inaccessible. For example, usernames that have undergone "right to vanish", or deleted contributions. Wnt (talk) 02:31, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
  134. Support --Liberaler Humanist (talk) 21:40, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
  135. Support per Technical 13 above. Dontreader (talk) 04:43, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
  136. Support because it most naturally fits the actual situation. Opt-in or opt-out gives undue weight to the idea that there is an expectation of privacy or obscurity. —EncMstr (talk) 06:07, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
  137. Support because it implies you do have privacy, when none such exists. Rilech (talk) 06:35, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
  138. Support per Technical 13 above. That is, telling people it is opt-in misleadingly implies that if they don't opt-in the data is secure and no-one can access it. Ncmvocalist (talk) 16:48, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
  139. Support per Technical 13 above. Wikipedia should not mislead editors. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 21:01, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
  140. Support “In the kingdom of glass everything is transparent, and there is no place to hide a dark heart.” ― Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration. And that kingdom of glass is Wikipedia. There's no point of misleading users to hide something which is freely accessible. --Ankit Maity «T § C»«Review Me» 07:44, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
  141. Support As all edits are released under an open license. — xaosflux Talk 15:22, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
  142. Support. I am positively surprised this is the most popular one, but - yes! The date is public, making it opt out or such seems like some form of "privacy paranoia". It is useful for researchers, it's amusing, and hurts no-one. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that the more transparency there is on Wikipedia, the better, per the nice quote by Ankit Maity (talk · contribs) just above. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 07:50, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
  143. Support - There is no privacy here to protect, so the idea that this tool can reveal anything that is not available by other means is a delusion. Giving users opt in or out simply reinforces that delusion. It should in fact be made absolutely clear to all contributors that there is no privacy on Wikipedia. The only private information is editors' real life identities, as long as they don't out themselves. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 08:49, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
  144. Support - Wikipedia is all about maximum diffusion of free information, and we should practice it internally as well. Rjensen (talk) 17:15, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
  145. Support Data on editors' contributions should be widely available to combat POV pushing and similar problematic behaviour. There is no privacy issue as contributions are public record. This falls squarely in line with the foundations's privacy policy which reads: User contributions are also aggregated and publicly available. User contributions are aggregated according to their registration and login status. Data on user contributions, such as the times at which users edited and the number of edits they have made, are publicly available via user contributions lists, and in aggregated forms published by other users. ThemFromSpace 20:18, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
  146. Support. Public data is public data. If there was some "bad" usage of the edit counter to be afraid of, it's too late to fix now, so might as well enjoy the upside of the tool as well. SnowFire (talk) 20:49, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
  147. Support per Jackmcbarn, and those who have noted that WikiChecker already does this without the opt-in requirement. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 09:46, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
  148. Support. Wikipedia isn't about your credit card details, and the site was designed to be very open. George8211 // Give a trout a home! 10:49, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
  149. Support Nothing wrong, I think edit counts are helpful and should be ad public. ///EuroCarGT 21:15, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
  150. Support This makes existing information easy to access. I have thought about this and wanted it for a long time. Keeping an opt-out option might be a good idea for users concerned about their privacy and safety. Blue Rasberry (talk) 01:39, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
  151. Support: It's clear from reading some of the !votes for optin and optout that there are many intelligent wikipedia editors who nonetheless are under the impression that you can somehow opt out of your edit history being visible to your boss/oppressive government/stalkers/etc. Your edit history is always publicly available and visible to anyone and everyone, and pretending otherwise is about as effective as sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting "LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!". Blocking access to this tool is at best ineffective and at worst misleading and harmful to the transparency that Wikipedia tries to support. --Ahecht (TALK
    PAGE    ) 02:39, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
  152. Support Sir Lothar (talk) 11:24, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
  153. Support. Not only is the data already publicly available, but the aggregated statistics are also publicly available through off-wiki tools. SpinningSpark 10:14, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
  154. Wasn't it already decided over a year ago to remove the opt-in requirement? I suppose I didn't follow that discussion as carefully as I'd originally thought. Honestly, there's really nothing to hide. Each user's editing history is publicly accessible, and this tool is incredibly helpful in a quick at-a-glance assessment of their contributions. Kurtis (talk) 22:01, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
  155. "Öffentliche Daten nützen, private Daten schützen!" (sloagan of german Chaos Computer Club), this data is public, everyone can use it, to limit use for ony those with programming skill makes nothing better. Instead we should rethink what data we do save but don't really need. -- MichaelSchoenitzer (talk) 11:13, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
  156. Support: Information wants to be free. WanderingLost (talk) 14:53, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
  157. Support as something that might as well be baked in. a13ean (talk) 20:12, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
  158. Support - I am unconvinced by the retain !voters' rationale of preserving privacy. My thoughts tend to concur with what others have said: A user's editing statistics is not private data. If a committed stalker truly wants to compile a list of your most edited pages, they can either write their own script or just thoroughly examine your contribution history. To be frank, Special:Contributions is much more helpful in ascertaining a user's time at home, etc, since it contains detailed timestamps. The benefits of having this as an quick summary of a user's contributions is very helpful, especially when giving constructive advice to the user, and this far outweighs any possible malevolence. Mz7 (talk) 20:46, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
  159. Support The data is available, regardless of the existence or otherwise of this tool, and we shouldn't give a false impression to the contrary. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:14, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
  160. Support. Per all above comments. --Zyma (talk) 16:14, 26 April 2014 (UTC)
  161. Support Honestly, if someone really wanted to find this stuff out, they would look at it anyway. Swordman97 talk to me 21:44, 26 April 2014 (UTC)
  162. Support. This information is public, and anyone who can program can make an identical tool. Having an opt-in requirement just misleads editors into thinking their info is private. -- Ypnypn (talk) 01:43, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
  163. Support The edit counter graphically represents what is already publicly available at Special:Contributions. The opt-in feature is just a facade and complicates things. If anything the general overview reveals less private information than Special:Contributions where you can see every single edit. Gizza (t)(c) 03:45, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
  164. Support Data is publicly available anyway. The info generated is actually more general than what is revealed in contributions. OhanaUnitedTalk page 04:24, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
  165. Support Those who want the "Opt In/Opt Out" system likely don't understand how the system works. It's not mining your account for personal information. It's not digging around for something only you can see. It's merely collecting everything in your public contributions history and compiling it into a report. It'd be completely different if Wikipedia had the option to hide your contribs, but that information is public and even if you Opt Out, people can search through your contribs history or even, as stated above, create their own tool that ignores this. To add an option to Opt In or Opt Out would be deceitful and cause confusion, as the information doesn't vanish, it just takes longer to get it. Jns4eva ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) (talk) 09:10, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
  166. Support per above. No point in restricting publicly available information; it would be misleading. /~huesatlum/ 13:41, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
  167. Support, but not because the info is already public. We should all be wise enough to recognize the difference between nominally public logs or individual artifacts and wholesale collection of same. The time I leave my house in the morning is nominally public but I'd want to 'opt-in' to a service which displayed my comings and goings over the course of my entire life. But the tool(s) under discussion are innocuous enough and alternatives are sufficiently plentiful to make me skeptical of an opt-in requirement. Protonk (talk) 15:12, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
  168. Support, per above. Namely that edits are public and other tools are available. Mohamed CJ (talk) 16:19, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
  169. Support as stated above, since edit counts are already available. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:08, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
  170. Support - Indeed. All of the information that this page presents is readily available, so opting out (or not opting in, if you prefer) simply serves to inconvenience an individual searching for that information, without actually protecting a user's privacy. It is a meaningless speedbump. -Nutiketaiel (talk) 22:46, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
  171. Support - The data on said user that would be accessed by this tool is available for everyone to see anyway, regardless of whether or not that user wants it to be so easy to find. Any user can look into another editor's entire history at his/her whim, and there are multiple tools similar to this User Analysis Tool, that don't have any opt feature for the user to use, out there already, and any other user with the knowledge to do so can add another one to that collection. Saying that, is there really any reason to even have a choice for this one tool, when the very same information you wish to hide on this tool can be viewed everywhere else? Supertoastfairy(Talk) 04:56, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
  172. Support - I agree with the first voter in this section. Jane (talk) 12:26, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
  173. Support. The opt-in/opt-out "feature" is amongst the most harmful things that the Wikimedia community has ever done to itself, and is symptomatic of its narrow vision of itself. First off, the collection of this information is a core element of editor accountability; we use the same data for RFAs and have for years. The collection and collation of the data is openly condoned in the privacy policy, and the privacy policy is explicit about every editor's contribution history being public and available. It is not against WMF policy to host tools that aggregate or otherwise analyse user contributions. There is no such thing as an "opt-in/opt-out" except to not edit. Anyone can host the scripts, anyone can make it available publicly, and anyone can access the API. Pretending that users should have some sort of special protection from anyone really analysing their edits, especially when we've just been through a Wikimedia-wide discussion about the privacy policy, borders on the hypocritical. We are an open project. Editing Wikimedia projects is a public act. There is no "profiling" here because the extent to which any user provides personal information is strictly up to that editor. Time of day of editing does not reveal personal information. Volume of editing does not reveal personal information. What articles are edited does not reveal personal information, unless the editor herself choses to do so. Editing history is not personal information, and it is explicitly public information under our privacy policy. There is absolutely no applicable legislation that would prevent such aggregation in the United States, and it is a long-held principle that while editors should obey their local legislation, there is no obligation on the WMF to obey legislation of other jurisdictions. In fact, it is a core belief of the movement that laws that impede the freedom of information-sharing in other jurisdictions should be ignored. Risker (talk) 23:26, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Discussion for edit counter optin

  • Still thinking about this. Will look into other votes. ///EuroCarGT 00:02, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  • I believe the reason that this kind of tool had an opt-in requirement to start with was because it was originally hosted on the tools server which was based in Germany, and there was a German privacy law that required an opt-in for this sort of aggregated information (the monthly breakdown in particular). Now that it runs on WMF Labs, in the US - the German law no longer applies. --Versageek 03:31, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
    But abruptly removing the opt-in requirement isn't the right solution. It should be determined through consensus, and global consensus still wishes to keep the optin requirement, so it shall be kept. But this new tool is designed to allow me to easily flip the switch on a per wiki basis.—cyberpower ChatOnline 03:37, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
    Yes the law in Germany has had an effect due to the location of the tool server. But the German community wanted that law to be in effect and as a result is very much miffed with the move to WMLabs. Agathoclea (talk) 08:43, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
    German law applies in Germany. If the information is protected, the server could be in orbit, and it would still be prohibited to download the data in Germany. Fiddling with the tool might solve the problem for this particular tool. But if you want to split hairs, you could make a point that user log and edit history present aggregate data. Even WP:POPUPS would require opt-in. If all this really became an issue, the better solution would be to have contributors agree to having their edit history processed in any which way by whoever cares to. Paradoctor (talk) 15:23, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
    It is not just German law but also EU legislation. --AFBorchert (talk) 13:15, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
    We should leave assessing that kind of stuff to actual lawyers, not people on the Village Pump. — Scott • talk 14:24, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
    All activities at Wikimedia projects can easily conflict with the law. We have copyright violations, cases of libel, personality right violations, and also issues of privacy. It is not helpful to attempt to decide these things by majority vote and then, if a pointer is given to related legislation, to claim that this is better left to lawyers. --AFBorchert (talk) 20:29, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
    This is not a clear-cut area like libel or copyright violations. The only people related to this project who are in a position to offer knowledgeable opinions on legal issues of any kind that relate to it are, unsurprisingly, Legal and Community Advocacy at the WMF. If you think there are legal issues here, they are the people to get involved. Presenting links to bits of international legislation to a crowd of non-lawyers is pointless; nobody here can make an informed decision based on that. — Scott • talk 21:47, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
    This is not my problem but the problem of those who are going to remove the opt-in requirement and those who provide the infrastructure for this. It is their responsibility to investigate and evaluate the legal implications of this, not mine. I just gave the pointer to EU legislation at this subthread as the discussion above was talking about German law only. I think it is interesting to know that this protection of privacy covers the whole EU and not just Germany. --AFBorchert (talk) 09:15, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Since a notice about this has appeared at the top of my watchlist (and therefore presumably everyone else's), you should provide some links and fuller information for those who don't already know what this is about. At the very least a link to the thing should be provided! You're not going to get many opinions from the wider community without providing this basic level of detail because people just aren't going to bother.  —SMALLJIM  08:56, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
    • It is this tool (here's my count), accesssed by a link at the bottom of your contributions page and enabled as described in the FAQ accessible from here (to opt in create a file User:Smalljim/EditCounterOptIn.js with any content). Thincat (talk) 09:49, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
      • Thanks Thincat. My point is that since this issue is being brought to the attention of all editors, many of whom won't have heard of the Edit Counter before, that detail should be provided as part of the introduction to the discussion. Links to previous discussions would be useful too, as well as some re-wording for clarity. If I'd recently registered an account and tried to understand what this apparently important message was about, I wouldn't get far.  —SMALLJIM  10:27, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
        • I realised you were making a point on behalf of editors generally (and one I agree with). Lack of context increasingly makes it difficult for non-insiders to take part. Not just genuinely technical matters but things like deletion discussions and so on. Thincat (talk) 16:24, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
        • Feel free to modify the explanation to make it more understandable, without changing the context or the question of what this RfC is trying to address.—cyberpower ChatOnline 17:06, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment - One of the points raised in the "keep the opt-in" section is that it is the expected behavior, and making it opt-out or removing the opt completely would conflict with that expectation. Is it technically possible to make "opt-out" the default arrangement for just new users, thus satisfying this concern? -- Scjessey (talk) 15:30, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
    Why new users? If anything it would be the opted out old users.—cyberpower ChatOnline 16:20, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
    Perhaps I am not making myself understood. What I mean is that new users should already be opted-in by default, so they can choose to opt out if they wish. I would imagine that people concerned about privacy would prefer this to simply switching the entire user base over. This is only a suggestion, as I myself prefer the transparency of having the full data available for all users. -- Scjessey (talk) 12:48, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Change only for new users
This seems fairer to me. Not everyone is a Wikifanatic. I’m sure there are people who have good reasons for not wanting this information easily available, but if they haven’t been active here for a while they won’t even know the change is happening. At the very least, any change should have a long lead time. Personally, I don’t really care, but I think this idea combined with making it simple to opt in would be much more popular. ☸ Moilleadóir ☎ 03:11, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
  • The structure of this is defective and prone to mis-use / misinterpretation. The "vote" for optional use is split between the first two choices, thus stacking the deck in favor of option #3. — Preceding unsigned comment added by North8000 (talk • contribs) 18:52, 5 April 2014‎ (UTC)
    • Not really. Besides, even opt-in + opt-out together would fail 20 vs. 56 against no-opt. Jackmcbarn (talk) 19:20, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
    • All 3 options are mutually exclusive. Combining the first 2 wouldn't make any sense, because if it succeeded, then we'd still have to choose between them. And in terms of the effect it would have and people's reasons for their !votes, opt-out is closer to no-opt than it is to opt-in. Mr.Z-man 19:35, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
    • People could be replying with "First choice" and "Second choice" if they wanted. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:59, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
    • I structured it this way intentionally. So I can see exactly what people want. I will weigh the outcome various ways and come to a decision that hopefully serves everyone.—cyberpower ChatOnline 00:37, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
      • This being an RfC, as proposer, how can you expect to close it? - Neonorange (talk) 06:10, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
        • Cyberpower is the one who is in charge of the tool - he will implement the changes (if any) that the consensus dictates. ansh666 07:24, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
        • Additionally, WP:RFC and WP:ANRFC say that anyone can close an RFC when the consensus is clear, assuming that a formal closure is even necessary. RFC isn't supposed to be some heavy-weight bureaucratic process. It's supposed to be a simple request for other people to provide comments. ANRFC wouldn't have such an enormous backlog if people stopped requesting unnecessary closures there. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:29, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
  • @SarekOfVulcan, Herostratus, and Mburdis: I don't think that the HR department theory is an issue, because X!'s counter (and by extension the Cyberpower's new one, since it's the same) only shows monthly counts, not hourly ones - you can't determine exactly when someone was editing from it. ansh666 07:24, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
  • And, related to the above, I've added what exactly the opt-in data consists of in the explanation section at the head of the RfC, so those who don't know now do. ansh666 07:27, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
  • The issue is not so much privacy as it is data collection and processing. The raw data is already available; understood. But the tool is value-added, or it would not be useful. It gives fast access to collections of data for rapid analysis. Access to that analysis is what is under review. That's probably why it's an issue under German law. Editors should have a say in how visible these analyses of their work are. It is not only worth their consideration, but not every editor's situation is the same. No-opt is one size fits all, which I think is quite inappropriate in these circumstances. I've opted-in myself, but I appreciate being asked. It's polite, considerate, and non-demanding, which is exactly what opt-out is not. In real life, I have actually chosen not to do business any longer with certain corporations who choose to force issues on their customers. I see no reason why we cannot continue to do better here. Evensteven (talk) 07:33, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
    • I think there's some confusion as to how difficult this data is to compile without the tool. Besides Wikichecker, which gives all the same data and more with no opt-in/out, one can simply download usercontribs data from the API in the XML format, and load it into Excel or LibreOffice, where you can sort by date/title/namespace and get the same results. It requires knowing about the API, and would take a while to do manually for people with more than a couple thousand edits, but otherwise requires no special technical skills or any programming whatsoever. The tool is not doing any sort of complex analysis. I'm sure if you gave the data to some big data analytics people, they could come up with some revelations that probably would be seen as a privacy violation. But this tool isn't that. I disagree that giving people nothing more than the illusion of privacy is actually in their best interest. Mr.Z-man 13:38, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
      • Again, the issue isn't privacy. Your method of producing an analysis sounds easy conceptually, but it takes time and effort to accomplish manually - actually, a fair amount of fiddling around - for each and every query. It would also be a great deal easier for some than for others, depending on technical fluency. But the issue is not difficulty either. The tool is still value-added, and its usefulness is a measure of how much easier and faster it is to let it produce its results than to take alternative approaches. Evensteven (talk) 20:16, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
        • Also I doubt that there are very many users who are even aware that the tool exists. When I did, I immediately opted in. Why not? I don't understand the position that employers will be able to seize on this data. I think that's far-fetched. If an employee wishes to conceal his Wikipedia editing from his employer, he just simply has to not disclose it. What people do in their spare time is their business. If an editor has disclosed his user ID to his employer for some reason, it is a simple matter for the employer to go back through the contribution history to determine what articles he has edited and when those edits took place, on company time or not. So overall the opposition to automatic opt-in is puzzling to me. Coretheapple (talk) 21:09, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
          • It's not entirely transparent to me either. But count me as willing to give people the benefit of the doubt when describing their own situations. If someone says they have a problem, they have one, whether or not they've analyzed it logically. And who says all problems have to be logical? Evensteven (talk) 21:31, 6 April 2014 (UTC) In addition, why the rush to make a change in options here? I say give those who have doubts some time to satisfy themselves about the matter. The whole thing could resolve itself in time, just given a chance to evolve. Push tends to come to shove, and then people's positions harden past reason. Evensteven (talk) 21:36, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
          • Coretheapple, your "users" must mean "the couple thousand editors who have made thousands of edits, just like me". Just during the last month, 130,472 made at least one edit. In the entire history of this counter, only 4,648 editors have opted-in. That means that at least 96.5% of people who edited during the last 30 days did not opt-in. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:39, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
            • If I made just one edit, I wouldn't opt in either. Hell, for the vast majority of casual users whose work can be observed on one screen of their contribution history, opting in would be pretty superfluous anyway. Coretheapple (talk) 15:58, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
            • You are forgetting the 5,383 editors who have opted in globally.—cyberpower ChatOnline 00:59, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
              • True, but I'm also "forgetting" to include couple hundred thousand people who edited at the 800+ other projects in the count of people who made an edit here during the last 30 days, so I suspect that it evens out. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:09, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Given the Future Plans tab showing "What's to be added to the tool"—things that have yet to be implemented—perhaps this RfC is premature. You are asking editors to give blanket approval to possibly more revealing reports, which have yet to be developed. Wbm1058 (talk) 18:37, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
    • Agreed. And make no mistake that the reports are revealing. It's easy for some to produce tools like this, doable but inconvenient for others, not easy for yet others; that is not a level playing field. The raw data is public, but the tools make the reports just as public; that's why they're useful. But there are bad actors in the world, and some editors may be more subject to intrusions or harassments than others. It ought to be up to them to make these decisions about their own conditions. Lack of options lock in one rule for all, and can only influence some negatively. Locking in decisions like opt/no-opt in advance of future implementations can only make later tool expansions more controversial and difficult. It benefits us to be as light as possible with mandates. Evensteven (talk) 19:11, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
      • A vote was asked for. Remove got almost three times the total of Retain and Replace together. Most of voters voiced their opinion. So the discussion continues, possibly ignoring the vote entirely. Sammy D III (talk) 11:57, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
        • Consensus is much more than—and absolutely not limited to—just vote counting. Backers of all three "options" have made valid points worthy of consideration, and possibly changing of opinions. I myself am on the fence between options 1 and 3. Lets let it continue, as there are no emergencies on Wikipedia. GenQuest "Talk to Me" 13:43, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
          • I understand, and agree, this is all talk. I felt that the process was being discounted after it occurred, possibly because of the outcome. The today guys on top aren't mentioning it, but it's not really a factor there. Option 1 is clearly operationally right, but I've seen a lot of "old boy" stuff, so 3 for me. Thank you for your time. Sammy D III (talk) 14:19, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
            • The meaning of this comment is not clear. Sorry if I'm missing your point, but I can't really tell what it is. But if it's meant to dismiss talk as irrelevant, I would ask, what are other good options? What process and outcome are you referring to? This discussion is still open. And talk converts to action. I'm not just referring to discussion outcomes and official actions that result. People still decide how they are going to react, and what actions they will take in consequence. Internal WP process outcomes do not have the effect of law, but they can alienate. What is the use of anyone trying to force an issue? The whole idea of that is counterproductive. Evensteven (talk) 19:04, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
              • My poor communication skills? I didn't mean to pick a fight, I thought that was the end. There is no direct outcome here, we are talking, correct? The vote was not binding, it was a talking point? I came here to voice an opinion, just as the top of the page asked me to. I thought "perhaps this RfC is premature" and "Agreed" discounted a talk that had been going on, and a vote which did not support their views. Option one would help control this place, but I have seen old editors who know each other supporting each other, so my feeling is to support option 3 as sort of freedom of information. Enough? Sammy D III (talk) 04:20, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
                • Ah, ok, got it. I didn't mean to fight either. Just trying to make sense come out of confusion. Didn't understand the mutual supports here, or mean to discount a discussion (rather the opposite); I don't know anyone here. Evensteven (talk) 04:39, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
                  • Thank you, I appreciate your post. "My poor communication skills" is a real ongoing problem, I think I was explaining myself to someone else when you noticed me. I'm clearest when I'm quiet, but have little self-control. And I'm impaired, so if you want to make sense out of confusion, you are so in the wrong place. Also, I didn't mean support here specifically, I'm sure it's happening, but I meant in general. Again, thank you, now please stop wasting your time, find a rational discussion, and enjoy. Sammy D III (talk) 11:56, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
                    • My turn, perhaps, to be clearer. One of my points has always been that it's not a waste of time to talk, even if others are not always being rational, and even to someone who has poor communication skills. All the more so in discussions like this, where one goal is to try to find the sense (hopefully shared in some form of consensus) that arises out of initial confusion. Poor communication skills are just that: a lack of skill. They can be worked on, and improved - and it can be really tough work, so keep trying. Those who are most impaired in communications are not those who do not know how to express themselves well, but those who do not know how to increase their understanding by listening to others. That doesn't necessarily mean coming to agree with the others, but it does mean learning just where they're coming from. From where I sit, I'd say you have a better skill there than some I've seen who can express themselves most precisely. (But I'm not referring to participants in this present discussion.) Communication requires talk (at least in this medium), but talk can also exist without communication. While that kind can end up being a "waste of time", the attempt to talk is not. Communication requires foremost the willingness to listen, to respect the speaker enough to let him or her be heard. That's one requisite of WP's "assume good faith" policy. Communication breaks down when that is absent, such as when one person tries to force an agenda on another (no willingness to listen). Mutual support among those who know each other is generally a good thing, but that support becomes unsupportable when it creates a gang. Usually, there are solid, reasonable points of view on all sides of a question. It's the shutting down of one side through power play that is offensive, and a waste of time, for the reasonable viewpoints don't go away through application of power. That's why discussion is not particularly resolvable through a mere counting of votes. It's so seldom about majorities, either here or in real life (and what's not real about here either?), which is the great underlying problem in the theory of democracy. It's about all those reasonable viewpoints. Resolution comes from weighing them all and trying to come to the best possible way of making or allowing reasons to work in practice. Votes are never enough to tell you that. Part of why I am immediately so suspicious of the efficacy of policies based on "no option" is that they tend to short-circuit reasonable viewpoints. I've listened to reasons here, and understand some more than others, and am willing to respect some of the others I don't understand so well. So I vote not to exercise more power than I have to: meaning opt-in. Your vote is your own, and I can respect that too. But when it comes to communication skills, I recommend staying engaged. Continue to participate. Things are not so bad on your end, and practice makes perfect. Evensteven (talk) 18:17, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
                      • I don't know where this goes, the talks seems to have broken into segments. I had the numbers wrong, but I had the idea. 1: What, other than a moral judgment, is the incentive to offering more information than your neighbor? Is there an actual advantage? Many post their interests, counts, etc., on their user page. If you want to do that, it’s pretty local, but you can get your actions out there, sort of. If you didn’t have this counter option to start with, would you miss it? 2: If you choose to conceal info, even if it’s available elsewhere, it sort of sounds like secret. What are you hiding? Even if nothing, it just looks bad. 3: Why not just give everyone as much privacy as possible? The same info available to all? Maybe some kind of “grandfather” deal is called for, but we are only talking contribs, not IPs or anything, correct? Why not just make the option disappear? Thank you. Sammy D III (talk) 17:25, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
  1. Two total edits, one on their personal userpage and the other one here. Should I be suspecting that off-wiki canvassing is going on? --benlisquareT•C•E 05:34, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
    I would have to say yes, there is meatpuppetry or canvassing going on, considering supports 28, 37, 44, 45, and 48 in this section. Sven Manguard Wha? 07:53, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
    @Benlisquare: Special:CentralAuth/Leuchtschnabelbeutelschabe indicates almost 1,000 edits to Wikimedia projects, though... Vogone (talk) 15:12, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
    Vogone: Yes, but how did two German Wikipedia users with very few total and no recent edits to this project, along with three other users that I couldn't find any substantial edit history from, all happen to find this one discussion in such a small window of time? Sven Manguard Wha? 16:25, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
    Ed wrote under "For reference" near the start: "Noting that this has been picked up by the German Wikipedia's Kurier". PrimeHunter (talk) 16:48, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
    dewiki or no dewiki, this is still off-wiki canvassing, and therefore a problem. dewiki is a separate project to enwiki, which means that users are being canvassed from off-site to vote here. --benlisquareT•C•E 17:28, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
    The page you linked says: "However, canvassing which is done with the intention of influencing the outcome of a discussion in a particular way is considered inappropriate." I cannot see this "intention of influencing the outcome" in this case as the notice was directed to the whole dewiki community (not only a part of it) and obviously, thanks to SUL, every dewiki user who has ever edited this wiki, no matter how often, is in the same way affected by this proposal as all remaining users of enwiki's community. Vogone (talk) 18:17, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
    Also some who have never edited here. –xenotalk 18:27, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
    From the guideline: "Campaigning: Posting a notification of discussion that presents the topic in a non-neutral manner." - As I wrote in the section above, the message was not neutral. And while anyone who has any edits on enwiki is technically affected, there is little practical effect for anyone with less than a few hundred edits, as their contribution history can easily be browsed manually. Mr.Z-man 18:41, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
    I say count the votes, and pursue meat puppetry (if any), but weigh the discussion properly. WP discussions have more than ballots to go on when deciding issues. And let's not take an attitude that dewiki members are unwelcome here. Cross-wiki editing is perfectly acceptable, even if pursued lightly; only meat puppetry is not. enwiki members need always to be aware of how international the "English" language has become - much more so than any other language in history, even Latin or Greek. What is done here does have wide impact, beyond our own borders. That doesn't preempt us from decision, but it does give reason for some level of influence to come from those who might be considered normally "outside". Let's also be frank that laws and lawyers do not have good answers for the problems presented by an international project like this. "Jurisdiction" is just not something that can reasonably be applied in the older senses of the word. And if laws (US, German, or any other) can't become reasonable in practice, they'll just create problems themselves. But we can still attempt to be reasonable, about all these things. Evensteven (talk) 18:59, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
    (edit conflict)It does not matter how "easy" it is to browse their contribs history, and furthermore this is completely subjective. Also users with only a few edits to this wiki and their feeling of privacy should be respected, regardless how they got informed about this discussion. And that other communities weren't informed about the possible impact this discussion has to their privacy (I know, this point is disputed) is rather the problem of this proposal's initiators than dewiki's (or any other wiki's). Vogone (talk) 19:10, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
    It's not subjective at all. Someone with only 500 edits can have their entire history displayed on a single page of Special:Contributions or downloaded in a single API query. For someone with 10000 edits, it is objectively harder to review their editing history without the help of automated tools simply because it is beyond the technical limits of being able to easily browse it. Mr.Z-man 20:55, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
    Obviously. That's hardly the issue. Evensteven (talk) 22:02, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
    Right, the real issue has nothing to do with practical matters and is mostly based on hypothetical situations. We wouldn't want to drag any logic into this debate. Mr.Z-man 22:29, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
    Issues (plural). Hypothetical? Oh, that's "situations", not "issues": as defined by whom? "Logic"? As in "reason"? And again, as defined by ... Yes, I get it. Temper, temper. Evensteven (talk) 07:14, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
    What a bother! What unreasonably narrow reasoning! What is called for is not more of such logic, but more understanding, and more breadth. Evensteven (talk) 07:54, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
    This "technical limit" seems to be at 5,000, so all users with less than 5,001 edits can have their edits monitored on a single Special:Contributions page. Vogone (talk) 16:06, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
    Anyone with access to the Tool Labs replica database can get everything in one query like select * from revision_userindex where rev_user_text="Vogone". πr2 (t • c) 18:47, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
    Are you sure you're not the one who doesn't understand? I see at least 6 people supporting this section explicitly saying that it is about easy access to the data (2,6,20,37,45,49). There are 6 people using the hypothetical "it might be against EU law" argument (31,32,39,45,46,50). And there are at least 15 people explicitly saying it is about privacy (1,3,4,5,6,9,10,12,14,16,17,23,26,27,35). But according to you, none of those things are the issue. Should their opinions therefore be discarded by the closer? Mr.Z-man 13:55, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
    Do you mean me? I was only trying to state reasons why we should notify users mainly active in other communities and why we shouldn't discount their opinions/votes in any way and furthermore to disprove your ""practical effect" argument. I'm sorry if I failed with my attempt. Vogone (talk) 16:06, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
    No, I was replying to Evensteven, who is arguing that this isn't about privacy or anything to do with how hard the data is to access even though that's what half the people supporting it are saying. Mr.Z-man 16:31, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
    No, I'm not sure (that I understand). Why are you so sure that you do? I'm not arguing with your technical analyses. They're quite correct, and not difficult to understand. What's the problem you're having with the fact I don't agree with half the people supporting opt-in (about privacy, that is)? Is that required? I do agree with others that ease of access to the editing analyses matter. Yes, there are some also who are concerned about laws and how they can follow them. For some, there can be consequences for non-compliance there, agreed? Isn't that "legitimate" as a concern? Can't I say so too, even though it wouldn't affect me? The laws are bogus attempts to address social concerns in a medium they don't understand and can't control. But can't I recognize and appreciate the significance of the social concerns (for privacy) themselves? I have those myself, though I think they are of only limited (but important) application to opt-in. So, you mischaracterize what I'm saying; poor listening, or narrow reasoning, or something else, I challenge it. You're secure when dealing with technical specs and statistics. You neglect, however, to remember that you're dealing with people. The real issues are not technical; they are human. We're working on deciding how to manage the impact of technology in human life in just one more scenario. That's made more complicated by misapplied attempts to exercise power (such as certain laws). It's also a misapplication of power to discount the opinions of others. I challenge it. And it's narrow to try to pigeonhole people through misapplication of statistics. I challenge that too. Supporters of X or Y or whatever don't have to be homogeneous in opinion. There are plenty of votes for no-opt that agree with me about this. Nevertheless, I see no-opt, and even opt-out, as misapplications of power, simply because there is no pressing need for any application of power here. That power limits, unneccesarily, the flexibility that is due to free people to make their own choices. Take the flexibility away from people who are already confronted with problematic forcing, and you are certain to alienate some. It's about people. WP is about people. People are the single resource that make it go. English people, American people, German people; we're international here, even though we share a language. People can be frustrating at times, can't they? You're welcome; glad to oblige. But not to tweak you; only to insist that you're missing the point. Evensteven (talk) 19:29, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
    Hi, would you consider moving this to the discussion section? I tried collapsing it, but I messed up the count so I reverted. One or the other (move or collapse) would be appreciated. SlimVirgin (talk) 19:53, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
    One more clarification. Just because privacy is not an issue for me does not mean it cannot be for others. I cannot speak for others' situations, and neither can anyone else but them. Regardless how public the raw data is, the processed data is not, and "it's easy to write a program" is only true for those who know how - not nearly a universal. That may be my opinion, but not mine alone. Arguing against the opinion so as to dismiss what others say about their situations is also a power play. Unacceptable. This issue too is human, not technical. That is why no-opt is an inappropriate and unhelpful application of force or power. Evensteven (talk) 07:24, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
    I disagree about your characterization of "power" here. Setting aside the fact that a tool with no opt requirements already exists making this whole discussion really academic, as you say, access to the data is easy for those few who know how and hard to impossible for everyone else. So we currently have an imbalance of power. Allowing everyone equal access would put everyone on equal footing. Wikipedia works not just because of people, but because of it's openness and transparency. So decisions on things like this cannot be fully decoupled from the technical or human aspects. We need to balance what people might want with the principles of the project. Mr.Z-man 12:49, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
    There are power techniques to discussion, not desirable on WP. There are also power policies - those that make decisions for people. And there are laws, which exert power over all who are required to obey them. My argument is mostly about what level of power is appropriate to dealing with this technical matter - and I've been saying pretty much that the situation is stressed in this regard, from outside of WP. We need to balance not just what people want, but what people face when they want to edit on WP. We need to recognize that WP policy does not operate in a controlled environment, but out there in the world, internationally. It's not just laws either; consider work situations. Employers have legitimate concerns, but some of them also think they have the right to abuse the power they already have over employees, and surely some editors here face that situation. I think, for WP's benefit, we need to do what we can to encourage people to do editing, so if that means giving them a choice where possible, and where they may feel strongly about it, why should we instead produce a mandate that can only make them hesitate? I think allowing opt-in here is a very minor matter with regards to "the principles of the project". I've never heard of wikichecker myself, just as some here had never heard of this tool. The existence of a tool is not enough to make "this whole discussion academic"; that's overreach, because access to a tool begins with awareness of it. Though wikichecker may have no opt requirements, that's not equivalent to this tool, and different tools may do different things. Even here, we're deciding about opt-in to the new data collections of this tool, the ones that go beyond what X's did. There is no way to put "everyone on an equal footing", even with regards to the tools here, much less in people's life situations. I agree that openness and transparency are important WP principles, but WP also permits editors to hold back personal details and identifications, on user pages and elsewhere. There is respect for privacy on WP, even if it cannot be absolutely guaranteed. These two things can be at odds with each other sometimes, and need to be kept in balance themselves. This tool and others like it are useful for checking up on suspected miscreants. That's a legitimate balance point for allowing their existence and use. But they can certainly be used by miscreants for unacceptable activities like outing. I have sometimes used X's tool to explore other users' level of contributions here, to find out who's more experienced, and in what activities. And I've looked at editing histories of some whom I've edited articles with, looking for other points of shared interest (which has led me to other interesting areas, by the way). The point is that there are tool uses, and then there are tool uses of another kind, and tools don't care about kinds, and neither do policies or mandates. But as with personal data on a user page, I don't think we have a right to assume that all types of tool use are acceptable just because of underlying openness and transparency of editing records. Balance is tricky to achieve. For a place like WP, not even very bright legal minds have yet conceived how to do it in their field of expertise. For us, I would still argue for the lightest possible touch. First, do no harm. Evensteven (talk) 16:56, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
    You're correct that Wikichecker is not equivalent to this tool - it currently gives far more information than the UAT does or plans to do. The UAT gives monthly stats, Wikichecker breaks it down by hour and day of week.
    Now you're basically just setting an arbitrary line. Why does "do no harm" only apply to tools that aggregate the data? Why not go the logical step further and restrict access to the data itself? It just seems silly to say "We'll give you the data, but you're not allowed to do any analysis on it, because that's private." How do you turn public data into private information? And of course, it just works on the honor system. There is literally nothing stopping "miscreants" from doing their own analysis or using one of the unofficial tools like Wikichecker. It's like the gun control argument in the US: "If you make owning a gun criminal, only criminals will own guns." This will hamper good faith users trying to abide by the rules far more than it will deter anyone who is determined to out an editor.
    The difference between this and personal information on a userpage is that personal information can actually be kept reasonably private. Unless you use your real name or associate your real name with your username somewhere, there's nowhere someone can go to look that information up and they can't definitively derive it from the public data we do provide. With this tool, there are other places where one can look it up, and it's just an aggregation of data we provide. Mr.Z-man 19:09, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
    My line is not arbitrary; it's just mine. I have limited myself at this time to directing comments to this tool. I don't know what Wikichecker does; I can't be "right" about it, except to know it's a different tool and it therefore can do different things, or act in different ways. But the principles I speak of can still apply elsewhere. One is to let each editor set a line: opt-in.
    Don't be so binary. The trouble with black and white is that there's no color to it. I didn't say "you're not allowed to do any analysis", and certainly not "because it's private". To me, this sounds obtuse, but perhaps you're simply struggling to gain perspective. To do that, you have to look outside the box you keep trying to cram the discussion into. Of course I'm talking about an honor system; no there is nothing here to prevent miscreants. We are backed up, of course, by the degree of transparency already fully available. We work that way all the time; it's called editing. And we circumscribe the freedoms by jointly protecting the project when it comes to that. The US gun control argument is irrelevant, mostly because it's designed only to be argumentative, not to try to resolve anything (one of many such, on both "sides"). I am not interested in putting up barriers here to deter misdoings; that's already covered in policy. So, "it just works on the honor system"? What a great idea! And let's keep things that way on WP, doing only that policing that we have to, lest we be forced to live yet further behind the barricades. Lastly, "just an aggregation of data"? Do you really believe that, or is the repeated use of "just" a habitual way of dismissing something? Raw data is mostly useless. It's only when we go sifting it, tracing, aggregating, analyzing, noticing patterns, noticing predominances, and more, that it yields something useful - which is called information. Tools help do that work. Making the production of information easier is lifting stuff that can be used out of the dark corners where it hides. Everyone here has access to the dark corners; knock yourself out. But keep a rein on the tools. Don't ban them, but be watchful, lest miscreants foul up the honor system. And let people assess their own risks and opt to limit the candlepower (insofar as may be) that can shine into the dark corners. And you can apply that to all the tools, if you like. Think "permission" rather than "security". There's never any of either one when the jack boots arrive. Evensteven (talk) 00:27, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
    Yes, I think this is just a simple aggregation of data. This tool does not do any sort of complicated analysis. As I said elsewhere, it's no more than you could trivially do with a spreadsheet. I'm sure if you gave editing data to some Big Data researchers, they could come up with some things that might actually be concerning in terms of exploitability. But knowing that someone made 402 edits to the Wikipedia talk: namespace in July 2013? That's basically just trivia. Maybe useful for an RFA or something, but it certainly doesn't tell you anything about the person behind the account.
    I don't need "perspective," I need "reason." I just need to hear a logical explanation of what the actual benefit is. We seem to be in agreement that this doesn't really increase privacy, nor does it deter "bad people" from getting access to the data. And it can have some small impact in reducing transparency. So what then does it do? Is it just a feel-good thing? Should we do it just because people want to do it, and we should support the people? Mr.Z-man 01:37, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
    You need perspective before you can begin to reason. You're rehashing your opinions, which I have already addressed. If you don't want to understand what I'm saying, not listening is a good start, but that's your business. I'd say we can agree to disagree, except that would imply the end of a discussion. This however, has become just an argument. For others' benefit, I would repeat that opt-in is beneficial because it fails to force an issue that does not need forcing. Failing to do is what it does. Yes, that is supportive. But no, it's not about catering to what people want, as I said before. It's about respecting their different situations in a way that encourages participation here, even if they are in a minority, even if your concerns are not the same as theirs. It is collaborative. And it is congenial also. It is not harsh. Feeling good may result, or maybe not, but that's an aside. Logic is a tool that requires skill to use correctly, but even then it is not a panacea. People need and deserve consideration also. If that's no benefit to Z-man, I'm sorry to hear it. Even then it would still benefit Wikipedia. Evensteven (talk) 07:13, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
    It's not clear to me why you believe that "respecting their different situations in a way that encourages participation" requires opt-in rather than opt-out. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:15, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
    Opt-in gives each editor a choice, a little piece of control, out of respect for the idea that each knows best his or her situation, and what the impact of that choice has in that one life. We, from a distance, are not in a position to judge (and why should we anyway?). About all we are capable of is examination of the technology. That does not therefore make us capable of assessing its impact. But no-opt says that we can, we know better, we know best what is good for you, even if you say otherwise, over the top of your strong concern. Now, there are times when an organization needs to make choices like that anyway, for the purpose of being able to organize itself. But this is not the situation here. Giving the editor the choice will do WP no harm, and it will do the editor no harm. If an editor can see a sufficient organizational reason for that policy, they might find a way to live with it; if they can't, they may consider themselves steamrolled, which is not encouraging. The problem with no-opt is that it does too much, assumes too much, and governs too much, all where it is not necessary. Opt-out is highly akin, in that it makes the initial choice for all users who have never had the opportunity to assess the impact for themselves. Few enough even know of these tools, and newbies certainly won't, and won't yet be very able. And it gives no time to think it over, either. Evensteven (talk) 17:08, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
No, opt-in gives each editor the illusion of a little piece of control over data they opted-out being ever being private by participating in a globally logged public system. It's also deceptive. People who genuinely believe that an opt-in feature makes their data "private" will be pretty upset when they discover the existence of something like WikiChecker. We shouldn't be putting them in that position. The answer is to ensure that all editors are aware from the get-go that there is no concept of private data involved in the normal course of Wikipedia editing. If you don't like that, don't edit. — Scott • talk 22:52, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
Well, I've said above that privacy is not the real concern, but that "public" data is "in a dark corner" until it is mined and made useful, and a mining operation (which this tool is part of) increases exposure. I think it's the representation that there is no change in publicity that is deceptive. Some element of control over the exposure is not illusory. And why is it the business of one (or more) editors to try to teach other editors their role or options here? This is a community of colleagues, not a classroom, so don't presume so much on your own perspective. I accept that you have your position with regards to tool options, not your attitude toward editors, and hence not your reasons. Evensteven (talk) 00:26, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
I guess you didn't get the memo that security through obscurity is no kind of security at all. Apparently you think it's fair to our editors to lie to them that ticking a box (or not) has some effect on the data they willingly record about themselves in public with every action they take on the site. Data which is already examinable in depth in a vast array of controllable formats, what you edit, when, how, how often and with whom, in some tools that exist in WMF's purview and others that don't. "Why [am I] teaching anyone... their options" is begging the question, because the very notion that there is an option in the first place is a falsehood. The existence of WikiChecker demonstrates that. This horse hasn't bolted the stable, it was never even in one to begin with. — Scott • talk 17:06, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
Security is not the issue either. We are talking about different values. I'll back off on the "teaching" comment in your case; I've just grown weary of hearing unsolicited forms of it in heated discussions, and apologize if I misdirected that at you. You make a point here which is (mostly) stated in a reasonable way, and that I can accept (the reasonable way of stating it). But I see the issue from a different standpoint and, respectfully, don't agree that there is no option here. I've covered a lot of that above and won't waste time on repeats. The first point of discussions is to provide such viewpoints as ours. If we can have an influence on one another either way, through listening, that can be helpful, and if not, we may agree to disagree. I see what you're saying, think there's more, and weigh it all differently. Evensteven (talk) 19:24, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Minority Report: It has become rather typical for most Wikipedia communities to disregard the concerns of minorities. If the opinions and feelings of minorities would play a role, opt-out would be indispensable, opt-in the sensible thing to do. But what is the only Wikipedia option? If you don't want it: right to leave. Even if it were only one single serious author who finds out about that tool and as a consequence leaves the Wikipedia, this silly useless gimmick wouldn't be worth it. -- HvW (talk) 00:41, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
    I rather hope you're wrong about how typical it is here to disregard the concerns of minorities, though I have had occasion to see it also. The right to leave is equivalent to "my way or the highway". A "silly useless gimmick" here? I don't know. It's not a big drop-dead issue, in my view. But I think it's always worth it to say that discussions are not battles, and votes are not about winning. Winning happens when people can get along with each other, and find a way to work together. Sometimes that means catering to a minority. Does it here? I can't know that for sure; I can only remind that it is a possibility. Isn't that undemocratic? Yes. It's not the way democracies work; it is the way republics work. Whatever the tool decision here, let's remember that WP needs balance in everything it does, especially in editing. Competition is so overrated. Evensteven (talk) 07:13, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
  • I am in favour of openness on Wikipedia, but if people have made edits thinking that the statistics would not be shown, it's not fair to start showing them. Why not display all of the statistical data in the future, and provide an option to opt in to have data previous to the implementation date be included in the report as well? If everyone were informed of the change, they could edit accordingly. —Anne Delong (talk) 14:05, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
    • If anyone made edits thinking that statistics wouldn't be shown they were deluding themselves. There has never been a way opt out of your edit history being visible to your boss/oppressive government/stalkers/etc -- it's always publicly available and visible to anyone and everyone, and pretending otherwise is about as effective as sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting "LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!". Blocking access to this tool is at best ineffective and at worst misleading and harmful to the hypothetical people in your example. --Ahecht (TALK
      PAGE      ) 14:11, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
      • If anyone thinks that aggregation and processing of available data aren't value-added products that change the nature and implications of data collection in the first place, they are deluding themselves. Ahect, you do seem to realize it's being done all around us (outside WP) already, for various "reasons", with various excuses. None are good for privacy. Pretending that processing doesn't change anything is as ineffective as plugging your ears and shouting. Claims that it doesn't change anything are misleading and harmful. So then, just going along and behaving likewise is also cowardly, a refusal to reject unwarranted intrusions and usurpations of authority, and an acceptance of abuses as ordinary. I realize as well as any that Wikipedia can't reverse by itself what has become a worldwide scourge; much less can this single edit-processing issue reverse current WP practice. And yes, I also realize that we grant WP the right to record the raw editing data when we do edit. Further, I realize that using that record is helpful and necessary in pursuing the trolls that seek to damage the project - may every trace of their efforts be expunged from the articles!
      • None of these things provides the least excuse for misusing the power that data aggregation and processing provide. Establishing by policy that WP condones full "exposure" of edits through such processing is to make it complicit in what is already unacceptable public policy elsewhere. Insisting on it now, immediately, and in perpetuity, regardless of whatever more powerful tools may be developed later, is subversion of openness. If anyone thinks that a processed statistical collection makes "the truth" obvious, they are also deluding themselves. The numbers themselves can be perfectly tallied, yet can tempt a person looking at the tally to draw all sorts of wrongful conclusions. Stats always require interpretation; those who don't think so have not studied statistics well. It's not about the math. It's about possible human errors in judgment, in flawed logic, and sometimes in willful intent to misinterpret in order to "prove" a starting assumption. We need to realize that all these edit-data tools are subject to all these flaws and misapplications, the more so since they are in the hands of the inexpert in their use. As with any tool, use of the tool is not the problem; misuse is. We as editors have the right to expect a say in the governance of tool use here, as a guard and watch over the potentials for misuse. Privacy and security of the data are not the direct issue, but governance, and the partial security that good governance provides, is a factor. Opt-in is one more aspect of rightful governance. It is not automatic, and doesn't do everything (why should it be expected to?); we are still responsible for pursuing all issues of tool use and misuse. It is blind and misdirected to contend that the issues begin with how public the raw data is, or with any secrecy, or that they stop with this one little tool option.
      • I agree with most of the foundational observations of those who have voted for option removal, but agree with hardly any of their conclusions. Evensteven (talk) 16:37, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
  • I support keeping to the decision made on meta. Privacy matters. The arguments about "security through obscurity" / "anyone could get the data anyway" are irrelevant, because this tool makes trivial a non-trivial task. And you could justify almost any public spying and data aggregation that way. Germany has strong privacy laws around this sort of thing because they know firsthand just why it's so important. Opt-in is an important principle. As for the privacy violation in particular, the most revealing is the list of most-edited pages. Also I should think that to change from the decision made on meta should require consensus (as opposed to a decision made by vote, which is a terrible habit that we should eliminate). ··gracefool☺ 11:01, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
  • This RfC is going nowhere, which was entirely predictable. Who's going to step up to the plate and produce a comparable tool that doesn't offer an imaginary option of privacy and thus demonstrate how pointless this is? — Scott • talk 22:59, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
    How many times have I heard this complaint, only to have it disproved? The discussion is "going nowhere" because there continues to be a difference of opinion? Maybe it's somewhat predictable that the differences will continue. If so, is that not something useful for a discussion to prove? And does that not also indicate that a cut-and-dried approach will not represent a solution? Differences of opinion are not the end of the world! It's important for people to cooperate and give each other some latitude when they do disagree. Otherwise it's "my way or the highway", it's anyone's guess which obtuse side will end up traveling, and the whole communications transport system becomes clogged with wrecks. Evensteven (talk) 00:26, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Kurier report

      • Noting that this has been picked up by the German Wikipedia's Kurier. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 20:27, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
        • While it is acceptable to notify and inform editors of ongoing discussions, the closer of this RfC should take into account the possible effect of this particular notification on the outcome of the RfC in view of the guidelines on canvassing, particularly WP:Votestacking.--Wolbo (talk) 12:10, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
          • While I'm not a native German speaker, based on Google Translate, it doesn't look like a particularly neutral message: "The traditional privacy-friendly German-speaking community should participate, if necessary, to continue to make their voices heard." Mr.Z-man 12:46, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
            • For the record, the German Wikipedia's Kurier says of itself it's not necessarily neutral, not encyclopedic. It is a forum of expression free to every user. The notice in the Kurier was intended to urge users to take part in this vote which expressly draws on another vote that was held on Meta-Wiki about a year ago. Indeed, most of the German-speaking community have a strong feeling that privacy matters and that every move in Wikimedia projects that could touch privacy should be averted. So they should be informed about this development which matters to all Wikimedia users. Privacy is a civil rights issue, and it may well be that the American and the European stand are clashing here as they are, e.g., in the NSA/Snowden scandal and on the business big American companies such as Google or Facebook are doing with out personal data. Most of us are rather critical of this and want to hinder Wikimedia projects from becoming just another data-collecting project you cannot trust and you will, thus, not take part in. But English Wikipedia is there for all of us, it is not confined to one single language community, so we all have a say when it comes down to our personal data. This is no canvassing, or votestacking, as everyone is able to make his mind up and to decide for himself whether he takes part in the vote and which sides he takes. I have just made this clear in the discussion on dewiki.--Aschmidt (talk) 14:24, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
              • Germans are more in favor of privacy, but it doesn't mean that all Germans are like that. I'm German, and I'm impartial about it. I would also appreciate if this discussion was held in the discussion section below.—cyberpower ChatOnline 18:22, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
                • Unfortunately Aschmidt's comment above only confirms that the posting in the Kurier was a case of WP:Canvassing (votesstacking). Per the guidelines "Votestacking is an attempt to sway consensus by selectively notifying editors who have or are thought to have a predetermined point of view or opinion (..), and thus encouraging them to participate in the discussion.". That is exactly what has happened here. Aschmidt states that "everyone is able to make his mind up and to decide for himself whether he takes part in the vote and which sides he takes". That is of course completely correct but it is not relevant in determining if votestacking has occurred. One only has to look at the actual voting between the moment the post was made in the Kurier and my post above drawing attention to it to see that the votestacking had its intended effect. --Wolbo (talk) 14:00, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
          • Make their voice heard does not equate to vote-stacking. It is important for those of us who have experience and expertise, as well as strongly held, well informed beliefs, to "make their voice heard". Inviting contributions of German editors, or editors from the EFF, or the ACLU, should be applauded, if these people have something to add to the discussion. All the best, Rich Farmbrough, 22:24, 18 April 2014 (UTC).
  • The best solution is to make this vote known about even more widely. A neutral notice in WP:SIGNPOST is highly needed. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 07:53, 21 April 2014 (UTC)


Closing the RfC

I'm wondering if we should discuss how to find a neutral admin to close the RfC when the 30 days is up, and perhaps three. Perhaps people here could suggest admins, or we could ask someone to volunteer? SlimVirgin (talk) 22:01, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

I asked WJBscribe, a bureaucrat, if he'd be willing to close it, and he has agreed (permalink). He can probably decide himself nearer the time whether he wants to involve others to help him. I hope this is okay with everyone. SlimVirgin (talk) 23:06, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
I'm OK with it. I will simply implement consensus.—cyberpower ChatOnline 19:25, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
Just noting that Cyberpower and I have had an exchange on his talk page about WJBscribe closing it. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:11, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
As a general comment, as this is a global tool, I am not sure of the validity of a single wiki discussion. I would much prefer that this was taken as a global RFC rather than a single wiki local issue. — billinghurst sDrewth 11:08, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
As I understand it, with the new tool, the optin/optout/no opt can be turned on or off for each wiki within Wikimedia. This discussion is to deterine if the optin requirement will be changed for the English Wikipedia only. GB fan 11:16, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
Well, that's what the tool permits. That doesn't mean that it's a good idea to use it that way. I tend to agree that a wider RFC is more appropriate. I've been saying all along that English WP is international, for both readers and editors. Its influence on other wikis reaches across internal organizational (language) boundaries too. Evensteven (talk) 18:20, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
A global discussion already took place favoring optin. But each wiki has its own opinions with regards to it.—cyberpower ChatOnline 20:03, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
Yes, of course it did. That was still a more appropriate forum. But since this discussion is going on, I have been addressing it on its own terms: not desirable, just practical. Evensteven (talk) 06:56, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Write your own script

Several people have said above that people wanting to analyze data for nefarious purposes could write their own tools. Is this tool open source? If so, then "writing your own tool" wouldn't even be necessary. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:43, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

They don't even need to -- there are already tools available publicly which do appropriate analysis on the public data: wikichecker. As far as I can see, there are a number of people arguing quite passionately and coherently (at least locally-coherent) for opt-in/out who do seem to understand that this is public data, that it is not difficult to "process", that other tools are already available, so that in no sense understandable by empirical science can this actually provide any "privacy" gain. But all of the best arguments (for opt-in/out) seem to involve a final step which I simply cannot understand. For example User Evensteven above says "Privacy and security of the data are not the direct issue, but governance, and the partial security that good governance provides, is a factor." (just search for "governance") -- so I go off on a webhunt to try to understand what "governance" means, and in no time I'm drowning in the legalistic mush which they (the writers of legalistic mush) use in place of logic. I cannot see that it is terribly important: indeed, one eminently sensible option would be to remove the tool altogether, and replace it with a link to something external. But whatever happens, whether there is an option or not, since so many people seem to have difficulty spotting the logical consequences of making the edit data public, there must be a warning pointing out that anyone can make any valid logical inference from the public data, and you should remember that (and of course, if there is an opt-in/out, a warning that this has no effect on "privacy"). The public nature of this data is, it seems to me, at the heart of WP philosophy of transparency, and has a large practical effect in improving the encyclopoedia. Anyone who thinks otherwise is welcome to start Privipedia, in which only your own edits can be untangled. Imagine... Imaginatorium (talk) 16:33, 26 April 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for your note, Imaginatorium. For what it's worth, I wasn't using "governance" in any technical way, but was referring to the self-governance we as editors do all the time on wiki, how we have to take responsibility for putting the lid on miscreants, including any who misuse tools. I do find it rather disturbing that more Americans (maybe British too) have given no indications that they're understanding my points about processing collected data, and how the processing itself changes things. One point is that anyone can indeed make any inference from public data, seemingly valid or not, seemingly logical or not, and even be unaware of how wrong their inference can be. Those wrong inferences can hurt people, especially if broadcast. Well, maybe some see this and I just don't know about it. I do know my comments have strong recognition among some others internationally. These tools can be abused, even in ignorance (misinterpreting results), and even if we're not talking privacy and security. So while I agree with you about the role of transparency, I also don't want to lose openness. As editors, we need to be secure in feeling free to pursue the work. But it's a harsh world sometimes, and freedom is not free. Good governance is protective to a degree. I hope this at least helps you to see what I have been saying. (And I'm glad that I've sounded coherent. ;) Evensteven (talk) 19:37, 26 April 2014 (UTC)


Well, of course you make valid points about abuse/misuse of tools, statistics, and logical inference. But the fundamental point remains the same: given facts A, B, and C, and a logical inference from A, B, and C to D, how to cause people to refrain from finding, knowing, remembering, repeating, and publishing D? I think there are only two ways: by keeping A, B, and C private, or by somehow preventing the logical inference. Once you have decided that A, B, and C are public (which we have), only tyranny can make people too frightened even to think the forbidden thoughts. It really is as simple at that. And no, while I read what you say, and while your sentences are locally coherent, the overall point, it seems to me, make No Sense At All. Can you at least agree that this kind of restriction (the "opt-out") only ever restrains benevolent people, who will perhaps deduce that since the user has opted out one should not paste their user name into Wikichecker, lest one find out something they hadn't realised you might find out. It is *obviously* never going to restrain anyone who is probing (for good or bad reasons) from saying "I wonder why this person opted out" and going to Wikichecker. So it will never have any effect other than warm feeling.
Thanks for clarifying that you are not using "governance" in a technical sense (so at least I don't have to wade through any more of that mush), but I still cannot understand your sentence above: "Good governance is protective to a degree." We have established that providing an opt-in/out choice does not provide any effective privacy gain whatsoever: how is providing illusions of privacy "protective", unless it means "protection from reality"? Imaginatorium (talk) 09:34, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
Ok, I'm not going to belabor points I've made above. You're implying that I'm being illogical by not going from A, B, and C to D as you do. One of my points has been that D is not a necessary conclusion just because someone says so. Perhaps I make no sense to you at all. I do not retort the same in reverse. There is some logic in what you say. But there is also some lack of consideration of points A', B', and C' which should also factor in before concluding D or anything else. I insist that it's not all about logic either. Warm feelings have something to do about how willing people are to contribute to a project of this sort, including among other things, their own sense of personal security in doing so. Good governance of any kind respects people, and if certain governance is felt by people to be respectful, then the feeling is warm and the governance is generally perceived as being "good". "How good it really is" is (of course) a different thing, but both are still real issues because people are involved. What you may consider to be "illusions", others do not, and your perceptions about it are not necessarily the more correct because you think so. I have not denied that my own perceptions may be less correct, but mine are also shared by others, as yours are. I object, though, to your perception that yours may be so much stronger just because it is yours. "Obvious" is usually a sign that someone is missing something. Great discoveries are made all the time because someone looked beyond the obvious. Obviously. Evensteven (talk) 22:06, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

A similar tool in development

Others have noted that the information which this tool presents is public, and that this tool merely makes public information easier to access. Beyond this tool many other people are talking about making Wikipedia's information more public in all kinds of ways, so regardless of anyone's opinions about this tool, other people are developing other similar tools. Without a general policy to govern the concept of tools like these it seems natural to me that eventually, many more of these tools will be created. As an example of what is happening regardless of the outcome of this RfC, see the below active study.

At the University of Washington in Seattle some researchers are seeking volunteers who would participate in a study to test a tool which would help people find Wikipedians with whom to collaborate. Anyone may read about their research at meta:Research:Finding a Collaborator. To participate in the study, one needs to meet with them on Google Plus and take a one-hour survey and online exercise. Results of the study will be used to make tools which look users' histories for the purpose of fostering community. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:03, 28 April 2014 (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.
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