Wikipedia talk:Wikimedia Strategy 2017/Cycle 2/Healthy, Inclusive Communities

What impact would we have on the world if we follow this theme?

we could lead the way in collaborative, online digital humanities. Marthacustis (talk) 02:47, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

We will be able to cover many projects effectively and on time. Jerome Enriquez John 14:31, 22 May 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jeromeenriquez (talk • contribs)

The community can only stay healthy, if we stop separating information based on language. It would elevate that scope and use of talk pages and create more dialogue and hopefully begin to mesh the compartmentalized wiki encyclopedias, that exist independently, based on language, if we just had one wiki. So much data is isolated, due to the lack of inclusion, created by the antiquated separation based on language. There are only informational dialects that exist, now that browser based translators exist both visually and audibly.User:Anocratic

When the internet was first invented, there was a somewhat utopian idea that knowledge should be free and that the internet had the power to connect people together into a global, informed, cooperative community. However, there were also unintended consequences: the internet has been tainted by the spread of misinformation, lies and fake news; online bullying and trolling (which undermines our humanity and fractures communities); manipulation by advertising and big data... If Wikimedia follows the "healthy inclusive communities" theme it can create the utopia that the internet was originally intended to be. Any tool is only as good as those who wield it. If the community is not healthy, Wikimedia is poisoned from within. If Wikimedia succeeds in this theme, more and more people will be drawn into the safe haven of its community, growing stronger and stronger, and together we will be able to tackle whatever the future holds. Together we can help fix the internet. Powertothepeople (talk) 11:55, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

We have the potential to accidentally alienate a large number of existing contributors by politicizing difficult topics like medical conditions, unpleasant historical events, and scientific research under hot controversy. (see Chilling Effect) Aaron Muir Hamilton <aaron@correspondwith.me> (talk) 20:52, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

We can cause communities to become more data-/science-/evidence-based and interact with each other in new, more constructive and collaborative ways. I also agree with Aaronmhamilton and think that as we get more communities onboard and as new communities are formed there are often overlooked problems due to which we also need to build in new measures that ensure quality, neutrality, non-bias etc. Very important in this context is that on Wikipedia major viewpoints as well as viewpoint-conflicts should be informed about (this of course requires all respective sides and/or issue-neutral individuals to participate and properly so). --Fixuture (talk) 22:48, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

How important is this theme relative to the other 4 themes? Why?

most important - community is the critical success factor. you will not be able to execute on any plan or vision without a healthy inclusive community. Need to build self-sustaining teams to solve problems; this will require training and leadership, and resources. Marthacustis (talk) 02:49, 12 May 2017 (UTC) But we know what we need, please. We should focus on what we want. We want transparent liquid like thinking. Objectivity is the most important goal.

Absolutely the most important. Wikipedia needs more editors that stick around and improve articles. As long as some "old guard", real or imagined, refuses to cooperate or engages in behavior characteristic of ownership, improvements will be stifled and lost, and editors will be turned away. I've started a discussion about featuring a caution against this behavior more prominently in Wikipedia policy. Edit summaries are especially important when reverting another editor's good faith work. They should refer to relevant Wikipedia policies and guidelines, previous reviews and discussions, reliable sources, or specific grammar or prose problems introduced by the reverted edit, and not only protect a certain version, stable or not. This is a small step towards ensuring a welcoming community that really lets anyone edit any article in good faith, instead of turning away contributors and contributions with ownership behavior. Bright☀ 08:21, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

I believe this is in conflict -- or at least causing a tension -- with another theme in the Strategy: "The Most Respected Source of Knowledge". In brief, people who are skilled at finding & synthesizing information are not always skilled in social interactions, & vice versa. These are independent qualities, & having skill in one does not necessarily lead to skill in the other. This has been demonstrated on the English Wikipedia numerous times: quality contributors who prove to be incivil, & people who are skilled in social interactions who are revealed to be advocating an agenda that compromises the quality of articles. This is a complex issue, & there are no easy solutions to resolve this conflict of desires. (I doubt even rewriting Wikipedia rules would entirely solve this conflict.) But this issue at least needs to be formally acknowledged so it can be addressed. -- llywrch (talk) 03:00, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

I've not met these good contributors who are uncivil. First, if they synthesize information they're acting against Wikipedia policy (but I'll assume that by "synthesis" you meant arranging sourced information into an article). Second, it's not a popularity contest and you don't have to butter up anyone, you just have to communicate. If you can write an article you can write a comment explaining the reason for your edit. Third, all cases of incivility that I've encountered were explicitly designed to avoid Wikipedia policies, guidelines, RfCs, discussions, and consensus. Recently for example, someone's been told multiple times to follow some RfC consensus, and when they revert an edit that was in accordance to that consensus, they become uncivil and refuse to discuss. While the issue you raise may apply in some very limited contexts, I have never encountered it, and all cases of incivility I've encountered were attempts to avoid Wikipedia policies and consensus. Bright☀ 13:00, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Hello there! I've been banned for it. Most people like me throw in the towel long before reaching this point. They understand the pettiness and the waste of time this all is. Continuing like this makes us depressed. Why am I here you ask? WP happens to be the only source that synthesizes the topics I'm working on in a broad, objective and interesting way. (or has the ability to at least) What's regarded here as "reliable sources" tends to be too simplistic, too specific or very academic: not the best or even findable for a casual reader/informer. We go deep into a topic. We know what's up and understand the rules. No, we understand why the rules/guidelines are there, but we also know when it's in everyone's best interest not to follow them. Common sense. Expert understanding. WP:AIM means something to us. WP:IGNORE is policy but cannot be relied upon at all. You'll get bitten. We get attacked with policy and they defend with policy. We don't have time for this. We get provoked. Use harsher words. We lose. WP:GOODFAITH is not assumed at all. No match. Of course you don't notice these contributors... is exactly the problem!

As for your second part ("policy"!!, communicate, but the policy!, "consensus", ME, "avoid"). Yeap. Those are exactly the things we get pissed about. We try to stay away from it. We're competent. It's doable to avoid, but when it hits, it hits hard. We are the uncivil ones, the niggers to convert! (emotional Americans, don't get batshit crazy of my use of words. the world is round. not a bad word in my upbringing. yes, it refers to imperialism. but no, it isn't racism here. applicable in this comment. no, fuck consensus on this) Indeed, we have no experience to juggle with "policy" which is often just a misinterpreted guideline or essay passed as LAW. When we communicate, they rather discuss the messenger and not the message. This goes over our head: still stuck at discussing the message. We lose. Understand that "consensus" has a huge bias. From management in their tower. It's what best for them. I can agree with it, but never the binary application. No room for what is best to the common goal. "you just have to communicate" Theory. Not practice. Don't get me wrong, I agree, but what the word just implies is: 1. not always easy for everyone and 2. not working well. I've done it. Once. Other editor admitted misunderstanding. So far so good, but a revert of the fallout never happened. Took it up with the administrators. Got frozen after discussion for investigation of Wikimedia legal team, ending up with new page on the subject. Essentially proving me right. Single way of communication with facts and policy, but got the same shit back that was disproved by the 3rd party or guidelines were thrown in that are not applicable at all. It got closed down for "A contentious fact does not become uncontentious by virtue of repetition. Closing as Vexatious". You can't beat them at their own game. Up to the highest levels they do what they want and ignore stuff when it suits them. Facts, admitted mistake and policy be damned. Communication requires understanding. Paper only wins against rock in the children's game...

To end my rant, you are very right when you say absolutely the most important. And your experience is right in that this will never be a majority case. Numbers agree different people have similar experiences. Now, watch how they only react on how I said it and not what... --Ondertitel (talk) 20:41, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Unfortunately I do not understand your point. Could you try leaving out the rant and just make the point? Cheers, • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 09:34, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

I can't tell if you are serious or not. Sarcasm doesn't work well on the internet. Looking at other reactions on this page I'm afraid you are bloody serious. I've literally put one word in bold... illustrating my point very nicely. I'll humor you with a comparison. Islam for example. The expectation is a good peaceful religion, but in practice it's ranging from head scarf enforcement to IS knuckleheads. Wikipedia is like this, but not difficult at all to say 'no thanks' to when encountering its intricacies and the people that go with it. Let me point to some other things related to the problem: Dunning–Kruger effect, Survivorship bias and Brandolini's law. --Ondertitel (talk) 13:06, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Quite serious. As you say, sarcasm does not work well om the internet. If you take my words at face value, you will be getting the message I wish to impart. Wrapping one's point with a load of invective, hyperbole and apparent irrelevance makes it difficult to identify the core point, which is a necessary first step towards understanding it, which as you have pointed out, is important for effective communication. This is particularly problematic when trying to communicate with people who have a different cultural background, which is often the case on English Wikipedia.

With reference to the Dunning-Kruger effect, and its relevance to this discussion. Most people appear to think that they are good at communication. Some are. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 06:08, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Some very experienced editors organise themselves into cartels so that they can claim consensus thereby circumventing wikipedia policies and obviating the need to come up with quality arguments in defence of their actions. These cartels are very organised, very aggressive, very hostile, very vindictive and very intimidating. For these people, it is of no importance that their edicts are not backed by policy, or that their reversions are based on little more than that "they don't like it." And, it makes no difference if evidence-based arguments (i.e. high quality references to literature in the field) are brought to bear, they can always say "well, there are five of us who like it this way - and only one of you - feel free to go and get other editors to support your position." New editors are not likely to know enough people on Wikipedia to be able to counter any consensus that these well-organised groups put up. In this way, new editors are always disadvantaged. These cartels are making scores and scores of unjustified deletions every day, and posting warning messages on individual editors personal talk pages - typically very vague and unhelpful statements like "we don't normally accept these types of edits." Anyone who dares to question their edicts, then becomes tied up with lengthy debates on a project talk page - sometimes running to more than 15,000 words, per edit, and spanning several months, while they continually come up with new reasons why a given edit must be denied. In addition, this group has its henchmen, who are willing to target editors who disagree with their suggestions by following them around, locating every page they have ever worked on, making unjustified deletions, and often leaving snide remarks on the article's talk page or the personal talk page. This is very vindictive and disruptive behaviour and is alienating literally hundreds of users every week. The counter arguments by this cartel are often irrational, rely on contorted interpretations of policy, are often little more than personal attacks and eventually, when they are losing the debate based on argument and evidence, they pull out their trump card - which is simple weight of numbers. So, presenting counter-arguments against their edicts is always futile, because in the end, the group will always outnumber individual editors. Many new editors who encounter this group are so initimidated by the hostility and bullying that goes on, all in the name of Wikipedia, they simply quit editing. These cartels cannot be stopped because even Admin say "well, they have consensus - and that is how it works around here." I appreciate that consensus is fundamental to Wikipedia's way of operating, but there are groups of users who are abusing the consensus approach to push personal agendas, and to bully less experienced editors into submission. Ultimately these groups are alienating very large numbers of new editors daily. It would be good if consensus was based on policy and quality of argument, rather than simply weight of numbers. BronHiggs (talk) 21:44, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

Potentially repressive-in some situations, editors have to be uncivil in order express their feelings and opinions. Decreasing incivility can potentially wreck the openness and health of this community.Music314812813478 (talk) 03:49, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

Music314812813478, I can disagree completely with your statement above without needing to be uncivil to express myself. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 06:48, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

BronHiggs, You make a large number of accusations above, do you actually have reliable evidence to support these claims? I refer here to an actual survey done by a competent researcher, not a collection of cherry-picked diffs. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 06:48, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

PbsouthwoodThe decline in the number of Wikipedia editors is well documented in the literature. Many academic research studies attribute the decline to Wikipedia's inability to hold onto new editors. A major study by Ortega, 2009 shows, amongst other things, that the mortality rate among new editors is very high, revealing an endemic problem (https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Felipe_Ortega2/publication/200773248_Wikipedia_A_quantitative_analysis/links/00463519b697045820000000.pdf)

Aaron Halfaker has undertaken a number of studies into Wikpedia's editing environment. In one 2009 study, he found that reversions decrease participation by both old and new editors. (See: http://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/30625198/proceedings_p163-halfaker.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Expires=1495530516&Signature=3yUruCnI7r6vbEFWINShF1Dyx%2FE%3D&response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DDont_bite_the_newbies_how_reverts_affect.pdf) In another 2009 study, he found evidence of ownership type behaviours on WP (See: http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1641332). In a more recent finding, he reports, among other things, "The decline represents a change in the rate of retention of desirable, good-faith newcomers... These desirable newcomers are more likely to have their work rejected since 2007. This increased rejection predicts the observed decline in retention and that New users are being pushed out of policy articulation. The formalized process for vetting new policies and changes to policies ensures that newcomers' edits do not survive." (See: http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~halfak/publications/The_Rise_and_Decline/)

The research literature also spawns several reviews of the body of literature (See Ribé, 2013 http://ai2-s2-pdfs.s3.amazonaws.com/7264/05b404cdbde12adaf55e0ae85d4c588f04b8.pdf) which reiterate similar findings across a broad survey of the research carried out in this area. The real question is why WP cannot retain editors. And, to answer that question, it might be useful for WP to have some insights into existing editors actual experiences. This page is for editors to write about their experiences - and that is what I have done. People can take or leave it. But, whatever, anyone may think, this has been my experience for the 6 months that I have been editing - and yes, I have been stalked, bullied and harrased - and yes, I can document all of it. BronHiggs (talk) 08:44, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

My problem here is that sometimes "incivility" might be confused with disrespect, disagreement, or negative opinions, especially by drama queens and attention-seeking whores. What is "civil" or "uncivil" should be very clearly and precisely defined so as to prevent such an abuse of a rule.Music314812813478 (talk) 02:21, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

Incivility is difficult to define in a way that draws a hard line between civil and uncivil, and that line varies by culture. It is usually safer to stay well clear of the range of plausible confusion.

Disrespect, depending on which definition you use, can be considered a form of incivility. Respect is a thing that is earned, but lack of respect is not quite the same thing as disrespect. Civility, on the other hand, should be the default. one should not need to earn it, and should be able to expect it even in the absence of respect. Disagreement is a completely different matter It is possible to be civil to people one disagrees with completely. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 13:04, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

The most important. Any tool is only as good as those who wield it; if the community is not healthy, Wikimedia will be poisoned from within. Powertothepeople (talk) 11:57, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

I'd say this is the most important of all. Wikipedia, like all Wikimedia projects, was conceived as a free, open, decentralized encyclopedia that was, and still is, fully dependent on the community to run it. The whole point is that editors build on the works of other editors. If someone makes a mistake, someone else can fix it. If someone writes something biased, someone with an opposing bias can make it neutral. The stronger the community, the stronger the reliability, functionality, and diversity. In fact, by following this path, we indirectly implement the other four themes, because all of them start with us, the community. CreationFox (talk) 01:44, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

• I'd consider participation the most important. And I'd consider "community" of high importance but not of highest and more important in terms of the Open ecosystem/movement in general. "Healthy, inclusive communities" sadly is not the same as that/these. However of the themes it's the one closest to it. However if this results in high importance being assigned to measures to get people with disabilities, gays, indigenous peoples, etc onboard then I'd rather give it lowest importance as such can be even counterproductive and is often overrated (ie at the least not worth any high financial costs as long as there are more pressing issues). Furthermore it is important to improve the discussion-climate and fight harassment but I also wouldn't consider that highest importance (btw imo the first step for such would be more respect towards users who spent time and effort to contribute to Wikipedia: ie removals need to have proper explanations, their creators pinged and by default articles are not outright removed but moved to draft-spaces as well as more attention to complaints etc). Changing the ways in which newcomers are treated is important though.
  Instead of those things the element of this which I'd consider highest importance are measures to improve collaboration, community-building and engagement of people here. And the main way to improve that would be software improvements/extensions: new platforms and tools as well as improvements to existing ones. And in particular to WikiProjects. I outlined some ideas here (full suggestions can be found under "More comments"). --Fixuture (talk) 23:05, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

Focus requires tradeoffs. If we increase our effort in this area in the next 15 years, is there anything we’re doing today that we would need to stop doing?

yes , we need advertisements and show casing to promote the brain. it is unclear that is the case. we could shift resources from vandal fighting and pivot to community building. Marthacustis (talk) 02:52, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

Timespan or reduction of topic bans

The whole notion of "en:wp:Topic bans" needs to be re-thought and reduced, especially to limit topic bans to timespans of months, not endless millions of years. However, what is needed instead is term limits for Wikipedians, such as 2-year or 5-year or 10-year timeouts for get-a-life obsessives who cannot stop interfering with progress. Alternatively, the Foundation needs to run psychological evaluations, perhaps couched as comical ratings of "en:wp:wikineurosis" or "en:wp:wikipsychosis" as a way to monitor and encourage troublemakers to cease and desist, as perhaps strongly recommended (forced) wikibreaks of 2-year, 5-year or 10-year timeouts. Most Wikipedians have no idea the progress which could be made if the entrenched wiki-culture could be set aside to allow massive other ideas to grow into prominence, such as shiftable images, auto-hyphenated long words, spoken templates, or the "Micropedia" notion of information stored and combined from smaller snippets of text/images maintained with limits on size or complexity of data formats. Wikipedia in 2016 remained a rigid, static system which had made relatively little actual progress for many years. -Wikid77 (talk) 18:22, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

Endless millions of years Could you clarify the apparent hyperbole? • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 12:45, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

What is diversity

In my opinion the gender diversity may be included in the larger group of diversity. The stress of gender diversity may be something that will decrease in the near future while the diversity at large will be more important. I cannot figure that in 30 years the gender gap will have more relevance than today. In my opinion the use of the word diversity is connected more with "diversity of opinion", and this is a relevant aspect for the Wikimedia world maninly in connection with the neutral point of view. This may be an important point in a world where the globalization is a biggest trend. Minorities, or smaller cultures probably will not be able to defend their diversity and probably will disappear. I think that the diversity in general will be an increasing topic. --Ilario (talk) 19:00, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

I support the upper part of Ilario's statement. I'd like to extend it by "diversity of experience" and "diversity of knowledge/expertise" and "diversity of cultural backgrounds". However I do think that localization is a trend alongside globalization and that minorities and smaller cultures have increasingly more ways to amplify their reach / make themselves heard. And I do think that smaller subcultures will increase alongside globalized culture/s (similarly on Wikipedia there would be Wikipedia-subcommunities and the Wikipedia or even Open community). --Fixuture (talk) 23:15, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

This is very difficult to define for anonymous wikipedia contributions, but we have to assume that there is no gender bias since again the gender or race of authors are mostly not known, and there is very little direct contact between contributors. This is also relevant with regard to the cohesion of contributions in articles, too much diversity in style and academic depth will render some article unreadable or stylistically so uneven, they are difficult to comprehend. Some themes should be left to those specialists and academics who can keep articles up-to-date, rather than collecting random contributions, or not accepting contributions based on random choices. What we have in diversity, we might lose in cohesion, an important point in this discussion. (Osterluzei (talk) 03:49, 15 May 2017 (UTC))

Exactly how are we going to enforce gender diversity?Music314812813478 (talk) 01:47, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

What exactly are the results we are supposed to expect from this? Hopefully we are not going to forcefully make the number of contributors equal just for diversity. A less harmful way would be to encouragement, not force.Music314812813478 (talk) 01:56, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

Oppportunity is what we should go for, not equality. We should make Wikipedia open to all races, groups, backgrounds and genders, but we must not interfere with the interests of people. Opportunity is our goal, not equality. Music314812813478 (talk) 02:01, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

Strong support for Music314812813478's statement above. We should not try to artificially enfore equality. That will be counterproductive. People (incl. races, genders, whatnot) are different. And some types of people are interested in and and equipped to improving Wikipedia and some simply aren't. We should try to:

• be open to all of those who are willing and equipped to improve Wikipedia
• be easy to use so that people equipped to improve Wikipedia but not as tech-savvy as others can contribute too (VisualEditor was a good thing to do)
• encourage and/or spend low levels of effort to increase the ability of people currently underequipped or uninterested to improve Wikipedia (with "uninterested" I mean those people that wouldn't spend much time improving Wikipedia even if they could − e.g. as they get no pay / rather just entertain themselves with media; it's not about recruiting people which like Wikipedia but don't think they can contribute / aren't aware of the way Wikipedia works and how they can contribute etc)
• increase feedback for constructive contributions (e.g. edit-competitions/stats that show proper stats of WikiProject member contributions)

--Fixuture (talk) 23:26, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

I also think diversity is pointless. What difference does it make if an editor was a man or a woman?Music314812813478 (talk) 03:51, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

There have been numerous surveys that indicate that only 8-16% of Wikipedia editors are women. [1] If you don't understand why diversity is an issue, perhaps read the report. The report also explains what the obstacles are to more women contributing, and actions that could be taken to increase opportunity. Powertothepeople (talk) 07:36, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

While I agree that we want diversity of opinion/experience, often that diversity fractures broadly along the lines of sex, race, religion, sexuality, disability and so forth. Many of these have not been well studied but the participation of women on Wikipedia has been studied. We know there are fewer of them, we know they are more reverted, we know article content on topics of interest to women is shorter or less likely to exist (i.e. a content gap). I conduct training and mentor new users. Many of these are women. I do see examples of where content that women think interesting about a topic is removed with edit comments like "not encyclopedic" or "trivia". The gender bias on Wikipedia is very real and does not appear to be going away. Since the surveys that identified the gender bias, there has been a lot of grandstanding about how we need to do something about it, but we tinker around the edges holding some women's edit-a-thons but fail to address the fundamental issue of cultural change. I see no good reason to imagine that the situation with diversity of race, religion, etc plays out any differently on Wikipedia, I suspect it's just less studied. Kerry (talk) 00:04, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

Diversity of interests and knowledge is important to produce the sum of all knowledge etc, as we edit what we choose. Otherwise, not so much. However to get diversity of interests and knowledge is is very likely that we will need diversity of other things. It should not make any difference whether any given statement is written by man, woman, artificial intelligence, alien, or some dog working under a pseudonym. It is the quality of the contribution that matters (or should be). Some diversity we can do better without - vandals, spammers, hoaxers, drama queens, trolls, people who cannot work with others, and people who drive away others who would advance our project. There are still huge gaps in the knowledge represented by Wikipedia, even English Wikipedia, much more so in other languages. Translation can help, but only after the knowledge has been recorded somewhere. A greater ethnic, cultural and geographic diversity of editors is more likely to close this gap than any number of (for example) white American males. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 12:53, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Well, one form of diversity is source-editor vs Visual-editor. I guess we will never know what the visual-editor folks will think of this topic, because these pages are not enabled for the use of the Visual Editor and nor are Talk pages. The fact that the community dismisses this group of contributors as "not real contributors" and "not really mattering" to the extent of not allowing them even to discuss anything rather says it all. It's hard to imagine diversity thriving in a culture that rejects "anyone not like us" even being part of the conversation. I note that the vast majority of Visual Editors that I know in the real world (and I admit this may be a small sample of the total on-wiki) are women. Kerry (talk) 06:42, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

Kerry, why are you blaming the community?? It's the WMF that insists on disabling Visual Editor. The WMF has trouble with the simply wiki idea that a page is a page, regardless of the URL. They want different editing systems for different pages. Alsee (talk) 04:57, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

It's WMF that spending its money on developing it. It's the community that blocks its deployment on en.WP. For example, the reason VE users can't contribute to this discussion is because there was not enough support for allowing the VE to be used in the Wikipedia name space. Here's another discussion that shows the community rejecting the idea that VE users are part of "all Wikipedians" [2] Kerry (talk) 07:01, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

There is history to this one. Visual editor was unilaterally imposed on English Wikipedia by WMF as the default editor while it was in beta, and way before it was ready for serious use by people who want to get some work done, not waste time messing with software development and debugging, and it was a disaster. The English Wikipedia editors were up in arms, there was heated argument, and a consensus to get rid of the bug-riddled obstacle to editing and now it is going to be very difficult to get consensus to let it back because of the way it was handled. There was a critical failure to communicate, and a large breach of trust. The consequences will not go away easily. Also as far as I recall, VE is not intended for editing discussion pages (like this one), and never was. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 09:56, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

I guess this is one of those tradeoffs that need to be weighed up. If the aim it to build a healthy inclusive community, then the obstacles to new members must be taken into account alongside the needs of the existing community. If the only people who can easily navigate Wikipedia are those comfortable working with the source editor (often with a tech background), many others are excluded. While the visual editor may have been buggy when it was first brought in, if innovations aren't made then Wikipedia risks becoming obsolete. (Side note: It's always ironic when someone talks about their huge amount of experience in creating websites, were at the forefront of the internet, but when you look at their websites realise they haven't evolved since the 90s... sometimes decades of experience in technology equals outdated. Don't want Wikipedia to turn into that). I agree that it sounds it was a mistake for WMF to impose the visual editor on people who didn't want to use it, but that doesn't explain to me why it can't be optional now on talk pages etc. Powertothepeople (talk) 07:54, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Also it is very difficult for any newcomer to change the rules of Wikipedia (which are enforced with a zeal out of all proportion to the 5th pillar "Wikipedia has no firm rules"). What if someone thinks the notability rules for some topic should be different? Assuming they come along and try to change something, they encounter the existing user base who generally reject their changes. They give up and walk away. Another new user comes along and the cycle repeats. Maybe we all our rules should have a sunset clause, at which point they need to be renegotiated. Maybe that would allow the diverse voices more opportunity to be heard together than beaten down one at a time. The entrenched community got their chance to make rules, but effectively deny it to a newcomer. Kerry (talk) 06:42, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

Does it actually surprise you that it is difficult for newcomers to change the rules of Wikipedia? It is difficult for people who have been editing it for ten or fifteen years to change the rules, partly because changing the rules can have major consequences, which are not always easily assessed. Should people who have invested years of effort into making the system work, even if not always very well, just stand back for someone who has provided no evidence that they understand the possible consequences and let them change things on whim? The system has evolved, it was not designed, and it has evolved to be hide-bound and sluggish in some ways, but it survives. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 10:12, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Why do we allow people to be unpleasant, vandalise, engage in COI, POV pushing, etc, by hiding behind anonymity or pseudonymity? While I understand for controversial topics, there are good reasons to allow people to not use real names, what's wrong with at least having real names registered with WMF accessible by checkusers or other trusted persons in the event of concerns raised about their behaviour. It might be an interesting trial to see if people would behave better. Kerry (talk) 06:42, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

Strongest possible oppose. Pseudonymity/Anonymity is a core feature of Wikipedia. If you remove it you will destroy Wikipedia. --Fixuture (talk) 00:09, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

Removing anonymity will be a dramatic change to Wikipedia, but it certainly won't destroy it. Yes, it's a currently a core principle...and it's a core principle that should adapt over time. We're not talking about altering the founding documents of a national government here; we're talking about changing a key principle on a website. Jackdude101 (Talk) 15:35, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

I have to say that i'm shocked WP still allows unregistered edits. In this day of increasingly universal Web access, it's hard to find any interactive webpage that doesn't at least require OpenID or some other cross-site authentication for online participation. I'm not familiar with the the past discussion of this topic but i think that it could reduce undesirable behaviors. Pouletic (talk) 00:40, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

If you look into past discussions you will find the majority opposing this dangerous idea. --Fixuture (talk) 00:09, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

Do the majority always make the correct decision? Also, I'd avoid using terms like dangerous in these debates, as it's a bit over-dramatic. Jackdude101 (Talk) 15:35, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

Agreed. Allowing anyone...anyone...to edit Wikipedia when it first started in January 2001 is understandable, since content creation in general regardless of quality was needed to get the website started, but now that Wikipedia is firmly established as an online presence (it's the fifth most-visited website according to Alexa), I believe the need for Wikipedia to switch from a quantity-focused approach to a quality-focused approach is past due. One of the simplest ways to do that is to remove the ability to edit anonymously. I already talked about this further down on this page, but in short I believe that edits overall will improve, and a lot of time will be freed up from not having to police poor editing as much, if everyone was required to have a username to participate on Wikipedia. Jackdude101 (Talk) 19:42, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

It becoming such a popular website just makes it even more important that we lead the showcase of how open and anonymous collaboration can be achieved and good. You're not considering consequences and the central attributes of Wikipedia. --Fixuture (talk) 00:09, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

The main consequence will be that troublemakers will be discouraged from ruining the work of quality editors. This core principle has the unintended side effect of protecting these people, and hence the principle needs to be changed to stop them. Jackdude101 (Talk) 15:35, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

And yet when we consider reliable sources, we look to the scholarly peer-reviewed publications, which have always published articles with real-named authors. I have been involved in academic journals and conferences and I have never known anyone to request to be published anonymously or under pseudonym. There is a lot to be said for real world accountability of using your real name. I am not sure I see why the popularity of Wikipedia being a mandate for anonymity. If you read this study on why people read Wikipedia, I don't see any comments about author anonymity in relation to why people read it. People read it because it's free (as in cost), highly available (online), covers a vast array of topics in a good enough way to keep people coming back. I doubt the average reader gives much thought whatsoever to who writes it. I think this is much more an issue about establishing trust (and hopefully improved behaviour) within the community than trust with the readers. Kerry (talk) 03:48, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

Anonymity is intended to protect editors who fear real-life persecution for their work on Wikipedia. Some of us edit on subjects which are unpopular with organisations in a position to inflict violence or other forms of coercion on editors who criticize them. Unfortunately it also protects editors who make a whole range of inappropriate edits and interact inappropriately with others on the projects. It is a matter of choosing the lesser evil. Current consensus it that an ongoing struggle to deal with harassment, spamming, and conflict of interests is better than making the projects inaccessible to people who fear real persecution, which relates to our diversity issues. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 06:38, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

If your real-life name is Joe Smith, for example, and your Wikipedia username is SuperSexyLaserCat5678, I'm pretty sure your real-life identity is secured. You're actually less secure under an unregistered IP, as those that would want to retaliate against an editor can pinpoint their geolocation using their IP. Jackdude101 (Talk) 15:35, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

That might be true but Wikipedia is not a "scholarly peer-reviewed publication" but an open encyclopedia (which may get scholarly peer-review on a case-to-case basis). Also it's not less about people "reading it" than people getting involved (as well as having sympathy towards the project). If Wikipedia at some point requires deanonymization or the usage of realnames people will take the free Wikipedia content and create a new Wikipedia fork that doesn't require that (and potentially on the dark web), which would be a very bad thing to occur. --Fixuture (talk) 19:47, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

The common thread to my comments about is this "if you don't change the situation, you won't change the outcomes". If we want change in relation to diversity, then we have to do something differently and see if it helps. If we are opposed to all change (even as temporary experimentation), then I doubt there is any real commitment to diversity. We have operated in a status quo for some years and unsurprisingly diversity has not improved. Something has to change. Kerry (talk) 06:42, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

That is fair comment. However, there are some changes that may end in disaster. It would be preferable to avoid those (see Virtual Editor). How do we distinguish between the experiments which will have good consequences and those which will end in ruin? If we knew, they wouldn't really be very experimental. Some experiments are best done in a laboratory, not on the general public. Particularly not on the general public without informed consent. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 10:12, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

I am lost with your comments about VE? As far as I know, existing users were never forced to take up VE. I'm a long-standing and frequent contributor and I don't recall anyone forcing it on me. I chose to try it of my own free will and I had to enable it in my preferences to do so. As a professional reseacher, I agree you first experiment in the laboratory but one day you do have to test it in the real world, because the real world is almost impossible to simulate in a laboratory. Plus some problems, particularly the wicked problems, are not amenable to an analytical approach. I find that the Cynefin framework provides a good way to think about problems; within that framework I think we have Complex problem but probably not a Chaotic one. Kerry (talk) 03:48, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

One morning I logged on and VE was there as default. I had no effective warning. If there was warning it did not get to my notice. I could do almost no editing until I found out how do deselect it in preferences. It was not a pleasant experience, and the reaction across English Wikipedia was pretty extreme. I don't know how you missed it, but it seems you did. Things happen. In theory, practice should follow theory, in practice, it often does not. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 06:58, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

Established community versus new community

There is a potential "tradeoff" in benefits for established members versus new members if this theme is followed. The desire to build a strong "community" can sometimes come into conflict with building an "inclusive/diverse" one, and vice versa. There's a concept called the Membership life cycle for online communities, which recognises that, depending on the part of the 'life cycle' they are at, members have different needs and behaviours which can create conflict between each other.[3]

For example, an 'Elder' is a long established community member, knows all the rules, this has been their haunt for a long time and they have many connections. They may get annoyed and impatient if too many 'Novices' blunder around, making mistakes, questioning the rules. Elder's like things the way they've always been - they don't want change. They may make things uncomfortable for Novices; equally, if they are outnumbered by Novices, Regulars, and Leaders who are instigating change then Elders may feel like they are being pushed out of their own community.

Thus, in building or changing the Wikimedia community there can be conflict between the needs of Elders who have helped build this place from beginning versus the needs of newer members. Particularly when you factor in diversity initiatives that may benefit newer members more than Elders.

A smaller community can be more friendly and resilient than a huge diverse community. People get to know one another better when the group is small. There is less conflict when it is a mono-culture. And, some people prefer things to be a bit exclusive. Some people like a virtual 'secret handshake' to divide people on the inside from those on the outside. There can be a sense of comradeship, power, privilege, in being part of a selective group.

Even in an "open" community there can be barriers to entry that benefit the core group while discouraging others from participation. Invisible barriers could include things like: how established members treat new members, for better or worse; complicated rules; poor communication of rules and norms; technology used (members familiarity and comfort with code, tags, using a source-editor, etc); language; etc.

Making things better for some people can make things worse for others. That is the potential trade off of following this theme.

Luckily there is a body of knowledge on the topic of how to manage online communities at different life stages, which can help manage the transition so all types of member feel like their needs are being met.[4] The larger community needs to be clustered into smaller self managing groups so that members can forge deep connections rather than feel anonymous in a crowd. Create some spaces just for Novices, and some just for Elders, so they are not always bumping heads. Create different roles that members can take on that best suits their needs and desires. Powertothepeople (talk) 12:11, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

We need new people, fresh ideas, inexperienced users and open minds to remain flexible, adaptive and progressive. I don't think we should think about community in the sense of "the one Wikipedia community". Instead there is one Wikipedia community and many sub-communities (mainly WikiProjects).

So it's already clustered. It's just that this sub-community structure has not been strengthened much and made effective and useful. This is why I think work on WikiProjects (as suggested here) is most important.

A smaller community can be more friendly and resilient than a huge diverse community. People get to know one another better when the group is small. There is less conflict when it is a mono-culture. And, some people prefer things to be a bit exclusive.

Here's a short copypasta of what I wrote above as it's relevant here as well: I also agree with Aaronmhamilton and think that as we get more communities onboard and as new communities are formed there are often overlooked problems due to which we also need to build in new measures that ensure quality, neutrality, non-bias etc. Very important in this context is that on Wikipedia major viewpoints as well as viewpoint-conflicts should be informed about (this of course requires all respective sides and/or issue-neutral individuals to participate and properly so).

Also: subcommunities can be further subcommunitized and exclusivity etc can still exist.

The larger community needs to be clustered into smaller self managing groups so that members can forge deep connections rather than feel anonymous in a crowd. Create some spaces just for Novices, and some just for Elders, so they are not always bumping heads. Create different roles that members can take on that best suits their needs and desires.

Support for this. This is what WikiProjects are; or rather: can become. Much of my suggestion linked further up is about just these things. (@Powertothepeople:) --Fixuture (talk) 00:26, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

What else is important to add to this theme to make it stronger?

Perhaps this could usefully be 'Healthy, Inclusive and Connected'. Many of Wikimedia's sister projects remain very separate. Better connections can help make people feel like part of a greater whole, and to find resources that they didn't know about. Some examples:

• Cross-wiki watchlist would help people be peripheral members of projects that they don't visit regularly enough to normally check their specific watchlist
• Easier, more informative, and auto-translated links between language versions of a page.
  • E.g. the English Wikipedia en:Cédric Villani is smaller than the French fr:Cédric Villani, so it'd be nice to be told, somewhere on the en: page, that the fr: one is X% longer, has Y pictures, has Z extra references.
  • E.g. I have also posted this exact comment on the metawiki version of this page, to which there is currently no simple link.
• Even just within e.g. English Wikipedia, the recommend pages function only works for mainspace, but could be very helpful in the Help: and WP: namespaces to suggest possible places that the user could benefit from (tutorials/training, wikiprojects, Signpost, teahouse, help pages, policy pages)
• Support for a cross-wiki, cross-language version of The Signpost (independent, community driven newsletter), which is currently going through a bit of a rough patch in terms of manually-intensive over-complex basic tasks in publishing. Could conceivably be run alongside, but separate from, the WMF blog?

Doubtless there are other ways to knit the communities together. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 04:07, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

Good community relations build good articles. Bad community relations stifle improvement. The behavior of editors towards other editors is equally as important, if not more important, than any edits they make to articles. Bright☀ 08:24, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

I think that is an excessive generalisation, but agree that in many cases it is true. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 13:01, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

• Currently, we have no metric besides the number of edits to track how healthy our communities happen to be. Without an ability to track changes it's not clear that we have a good way to know how various policies change the healthiness of our community. ChristianKl (talk) 11:15, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
  • We have the records of admin noticeboards, arbitration, sockpuppet investigations, edit wars, block logs and other dramah which could be mined and analysed by someone who is excessively cheerful and wants to bring themselves down a notch or two. The rate of such interactions and events may vary over time proportional to number of editors, or not. Maybe this has already been done?
  • Number of edits is not a very useful metric, as it says nothing about quality. It only has the advantage of being very easy to measure.• • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 15:09, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Unregistered users should not be allowed to edit. We should measure if edits of unregistered users are more harmful or more useful. I believe that edits of unregistered users are poisoning the community. If we have or if we will have much users, then we do not need community of anonymous IP addresses. --Snek01 (talk) 22:07, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

I think you have the cart before the horse here. First establish whether unregistered users are more helpful or harmful, then consider whether they should be allowed to edit. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 13:01, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Yes, Peter Southwood is right. We need to research, if my personal experience can be generalised to the whole wikipedia and then we can make justified decision. I wanted to say, that we should focus our attention in that way. --Snek01 (talk) 19:40, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

I would support a proposal to research this point. At present from personal experience I have no convincing evidence either way, and would be equally unsurprised to find that unregistered editors are a major benefit, a major burden, neither, both, or not particularly relevant. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 15:09, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

I agree that unregistered users should not be allowed to edit. If you have the ability to edit on Wikipedia, you have the ability to take a few seconds to setup a username for yourself. It's not hard. This concept does not violate WP:5P3 either, as anyone can create a username. This is a simple common sense precaution to discourage people from editing who for whatever reason don't want to be tracked easily. It's not just Internet trolls and vandals to which this applies. There are also people with mental disorders or people with autism who fanatically make hundreds of unhelpful back-to-back edits to the same article. These problems have been compounded in recent years with the increase in editing from mobile devices whose IPs change from day to day, making the monitoring of unregistered users more difficult. I'm all about idealistic policies like anyone can edit, but it needs to be moderated by common sense because...surprise...human nature is not idealistic and people have, and will continue to, abuse this privilege unless this policy is modified as I have stated. Anyone can edit...after they set up a username. Jackdude101 (Talk) 18:14, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

@Snek01, Pbsouthwood, and Jackdude101: There is some recent research about this, at m:Research:Measuring edit productivity (see video walkthrough (25 mins) if preferred). One of the conclusions is that IP editors add a lot of value to the project (estimated at 15-20% of the content that is persistent over time, in Enwiki). Additionally, there are related points in m:Research:Asking anonymous editors to register that note how many active editors started off as IP editors (I did!), and that initial IP editors are a major source of eventual account creations, and that "users who edit anonymously just before registration are more productive". Lastly, there's some older research at m:Research:Wikipedia article creation noting how important IP editors for article creation in non-Enwiki communities. HTH. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 22:52, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Those IP editors who are creating quality content on Wikipedia should have no problem with creating usernames for themselves. I don't have anything against them; I am against those IP editors that abuse the privilege. Requiring usernames for everyone is not unreasonable. I could easily apply what you are saying to driving a motor vehicle: "There are people on the road right now without driver's licenses who are very good drivers. Therefore, driving without a driver's license is okay". It makes no sense. In order to have a prosperous community, you can't have anonymity, because there are people who will use it to their advantage to degrade the community vis-à-vis vandalism, trolling, and the like. Requiring usernames for everyone will not eliminate these problems completely, but it will make it a lot easier to identify and punish troublemakers. If you want a super-simple way to drastically improve the Wikipedia community, this is it. Jackdude101 (Talk) 23:44, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Quiddity. Thanks for the links. I found them interesting, but not conclusive. The research shows that by the metric used (probably a reasonably useful one), the gain from IP editors is significant, but what is the cost in terms of time input by others to maintain the wiki by fixing things the IP editors break? Is there a net gain after the costs have been deducted? This should take diversification of content into account as well as just persistence of edits. IP edits may be worthwhile purely by virtue of expanding the scope of the encyclopaedia, even if the work to clean up after them was found to exceed the value of their contributions on a word-count basis. Is there research on this too? • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 15:14, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Improved process to increase cooperation, collaboration, and reduce conflict I've noticed a pattern of complaint in the comments that I think could be overcome by an improved process of researching/writing/editing/publishing content that acknowledges strengths and weaknesses of different community members, so that we are better able to work together rather than come into conflict.

Some people are new and inexperienced or may be skilled at one thing (e.g. research) but not good at another (e.g. writing), and at the moment if they were to make a mistake, another person might simply 'undo' or 'reject' it rather than improving on it. This is a waste of time and effort, and doesn't do much for allowing more people to contribute.

If Wikipedia allowed differentiated roles and more of a project management system for the creation of content it might forge better cooperation behind the scenes where different people could play to their strengths: 1) people pose questions on a topic, 2) researchers find facts and citations, 3) writers write the content clearly, 4) tech-savvy people format it correctly for publishing on Wikipedia, 5) top level editors do quality assurance, 6) everyone is able to discuss, plan, manage and implement tasks, easily and cooperatively, working to their strengths. Someone who is an allrounder could keep working how they are now, but the above system would help ease newbies and/or single-skill contributors into helping out without causing problems for others.

Alternatively, it would be good to be able to save edits as a "draft" until I am ready to publish, or even better - be able to ask a more experienced editor to review my suggested edits before they are published and help get it to where it needs to be. Psychologically it flips the current system around - instead of potentially making a mistake publicly, risking conflict with other editors, having someone "undo" or "reject" my work, I could get preapproval, the opportunity to fix anything semi-privately, and help from someone else to do what I can't.

This may not be important once I am more experienced, but starting out it is a significant obstacle to contributing to Wikipedia - particularly when I look at a page's history and see the conflicts between editors which suggest it is a common problem for newbies to be making mistakes that annoy others. That makes more workload for everyone. And creates unnecessary friction. Which undermines "community" and "inclusiveness."

While there is a review system for *new pages*, how this works in practice is not helpful enough. I tried creating a new page in a project that wanted the page created, but the editor's feedback was not detailed enough to help me get the page publishable. In a case like this, it would be good if another person could take the bones of what I've started and take it to the next level. As it currently stands, it's languishing in my drafts and feels like a complete waste of time. (And, I should point out: I'm a communications professional in my other life, and I did the best with what I had on the topic, but apparently that wasn't good enough. Meanwhile I have been editing other pages that are lacking neutrality, have puffery, and at times have poor citations, and somehow they got through!).

These negative initial experiences make me feel like I am working solo and navigating potential conflict with others rather than us working together collaboratively. From the comments I've read, it's not just me who feels this way. There is a need to flip the feedback loop so new members are getting a higher proportion of positive interactions rather than negative. It's the difference between telling a child "please walk" versus "don't run:" one is friendly and the other is abrupt, even though both are requesting the same outcome. Powertothepeople (talk) 12:45, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

I agree– for such a large community, it is very easy to edit pages and never interact with other users in a productive way. Margalob (talk) 19:54, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

I think we have to have better ways to bring new contributors into the community. Currently we have the policy of WP:NOBITE and it must be the most ignored policy of all. New contributors are whacked over the head for any little thing they do wrong and are apparently expected to know every policy before they start editing. I do training and I see new editors in action. Most are completely bamboozled by the source editor, although they take fairly easily to the Visual Editor. Their initial focus is entirely on the mechanics of editing. They rarely notice that there is activity on their User Talk page, as their visual focus is in the edit box, so they don't see the messages there. We really need to put some kind of protective fence around new good-faith users, and restrict those who can react to them to people who are willing to commit to WP:NOBITE and try and help them rather than just revert them. I would be inclined to suggest that we should use Project as a place for review/mentoring. A common thing new good-faith users do is add unsourced information into articles. If they were reviewed by people in that article's WikiProject, then it would be more likely they would recognise that the information being added was plausibly correct and might be able to find a citation to support it. Kerry (talk) 04:27, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

As we are progressing the future generations are getting more technology adddicted. Since our scientists and other people are continuously working for the improvement of human life and lifestyle our old cultures and practises do not have much importance in the lives of children nowadays . So we should try to restore our culture which defines us as a human being and just tell our upcoming generations how importance is our culture as our identity Amu321 (talk) 06:50, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

• I think it really would benefit from getting extended or somewhat shift towards "Participation and community".

@Evolution and evolvability:

Perhaps this could usefully be 'Healthy, Inclusive and Connected'

The suggested streamlined WikiProject system as well as the recruitment of other communities or the embedding of specific tools would enable better connectivity of communities (users).

@Snek01:

Unregistered users should not be allowed to edit. We should measure if edits of unregistered users are more harmful or more useful. I believe that edits of unregistered users are poisoning the community.

I find this a troublesome idea that goes against a core feature of Wikipedia. Wikipedia intends to be open to everyone and being open to edits by unregistered users is not only about the contributions themselves but also about getting people involved in and excited about the project. Also even if it may take just take a few seconds to register that's still a far grater burden that you can imagine which will cause many people to never make that first edit and which will move the edit-button further away.

@Powertothepeople:

Good ideas. Strong support for this. The streamlined WikiProject system that I'm constantly talking about here (sorry) could allow for such things. Namely it could build in tools that would allow users to find their roles / tasks and find tasks that need to be done so that work is getting done very efficiently and collaboratively. There could be a page for the different tasks etc and for instance embedded collaborative real-time editors in which editors write an article or draft literally together which is then saved as article or edit to an article every then and now (it's all in the full suggestion linked in the linked suggestion for that system).

@Kerry Raymond:

Currently we have the policy of WP:NOBITE and it must be the most ignored policy of all. [...] A common thing new good-faith users do is add unsourced information into articles. If they were reviewed by people in that article's WikiProject, then it would be more likely they would recognise that the information being added was plausibly correct and might be able to find a citation to support it.

Also supporting this. Newcomers need to be dealt with differently and people should start respecting their time and effort for contributions. Also I'd support getting the WP:IMPROVEDONTREMOVE approach / attitude to become a norm here. Instead of removing people should try to improve it and find references etc. And if they don't they should at least notify relevant individuals and e.g. put the deleted content on the talk page or into draft-space etc.

As a sidenote visual indicators of people being newcomers / edits being one of the first of editors could be useful here. For instance their username or the diff link could get some specific color so that it's easily visible.

@Amu321:

Since our scientists and other people are continuously working for the improvement of human life and lifestyle our old cultures and practises do not have much importance in the lives of children nowadays . So we should try to restore our culture which defines us as a human being and just tell our upcoming generations how importance is our culture as our identity

I'm not entirely sure what you mean or at least how it would be relevant here. We should not try to "restore" specific cultures. However we should certainly feature information about culture which may become less relevant or understood or adopted. It would be good if people, including older generations or e.g. those with more conservative or unconventional stances or experiences, come to Wikipedia to add information that we might miss out on or on which we might be biased. I don't know why so many of these people don't come to Wikipedia to do just that (it would increase respect, good debate and understanding in society).

--Fixuture (talk) 19:00, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

Who else will be working in this area and how might we partner with them?

Many retired scientists have time and the capability to contribute new science and correcting existing knowledge. This is possible by exploration of the capabilities of Wikiversity projects. I am retired and I have started the Hilbert Book Model Project. The HBM is a purely mathematical model that helps to investigate the foundation and the lower levels of physical reality. The project introduces new mathematics and new physics and corrects flaws in conventional physics. Since the project does not apply experiments it can be implemented with very low investments. The required resources are mainly time and retired scientists possess that resource in great quantities. Look at the example and judge whether this is a potential contribution to the future of Wikimedia. See:https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Hilbert_Book_Model_Project --HansVanLeunen (talk) 17:29, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

Many retired scientist have time to make other people able to invent something new Sunnyrapper (talk) 15:31, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

There are probably already quite a number of retired scientists editing Wikipedias. This is not to say we couldn't welcome a lot more... • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 13:06, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Each wikimedia project would potentially have different partners interested in helping within their niche.

• Teachers (and students): Teachers are increasingly requiring students to use technology to collaborate and communicate information in non-traditional media. Teachers and their students could contribute as individuals or as a class working together. They could create a wikipedia page about something in their local community, or add to a topic they are studying. They could take photos and release them under creative commons. It would make learning more relevant for students as their work is public for the good of all instead of an assignment that noone other than their teacher ever sees. Could reach teachers by partnering with organisations that already have a large teacher community such as Edublogs, Guardian Teacher Network, Computer Using Educators (CUE), etc
• University lecturers and PHD students - they do huge amount of research in pursuit of their own work (e.g. literature studies), and could update the relevant wikipedia pages. It would also be a beneficial way for them to connect with other community members with similar interests and expertise to themselves (could potentially lead to collaboration in the field).
• Feminist organisations for help with the Women in Red Project. Could get very niche - female filmmakers (Female Filmmaker Initiative, Women at Sundance, WomenArts, Reel Women, Women in film & television, etc), business women (American Business women's association, etc), female scientists (European Platform for Women Scientists) etc. Appeal to them for help updating the content that is relevant to their specific interest area.
• Historical Societies. So many untapped knowledgable volunteers, particularly about local history that may not be 'published' widely or in digital form anywhere else. However they are more often older people who are not necessarily very tech savvy. Possibly could do a joint initiative to pair high school history students with their local historical societies to record local knowledge?
• Libraries, Museums, Art Galleries. They all hold a huge amount of knowledge, and if it is possible for them to share it and make it accessible for all... Powertothepeople (talk) 12:50, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Most, possibly all, of these already exist. Some work more smoothly than others. There appears to be a fairly steep learning curve for students at school and college, and they are often supervised by teachers or lecturers who do not manage their projects very well. There are facilities available to improve this, but they are not always used. This may improve over time. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 15:25, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

• We can partner with other organizations of the Open movement and create cross-platform communities, interconnections and make use of each other. One example would be reddit. We could use (e.g. embedd into that streamlined WikiProject system) tools of other websites and other websites to make communities here more effective and cohesive etc (such as subreddits, IRC, collaborative real-time editors, radio-stations, teamspeak/skype, newsletters, etc.) and we could offer Wikipedia uses to other websites and recruit from communities there (such as subreddits). --Fixuture (talk) 00:33, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

Furthermore I think that we should proactively contact relevant institutions (many of whom have been named here) with appropriate information etc to get them onboard. With that I do not mean time- and financially costly offline meetups or edit-a-thons but instead contacting key people en masse so that they edit Wikipedia (learn doing that) and then teach other people in their organization how to do that. We'd provide them with material to get involved and interested and to get started quickly. And we'd also provide material and guidance that they can use for the teaching of other (non-key) individuals people in their organization or reach. We could also make a contest/s or campaign out of this.
Imo as of right now the most important community to get onboard would be programmers so that the Wikipedia codebase can be improved (I might be biased in this; it's just my opinion) and that we could very effectively get them onboard by e.g. contacting fab labs and FOSS sites/communities etc. Some relevant information may also be found at: WP:Expert help.

--Fixuture (talk) 18:23, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

Other

the power of administrators

I can speak from my own experience as a new contributor (less than a year). Administrators have too much power and abuse it and users are left without any recourse against their practice. I will give you a couple of examples, photos are deleted because they don't go with the aesthetics of the page, because they are too many when you can find only a few, that there are enough pictures of the subject, when in fact they are no photos of the painter but only paintings, etc. you can see the subjective nature of these deletions and that is discouraging.

I created my first page based entirely of a similar subject (another Spanish television actor) and it was deleted because of its lack of encyclopedic value (which is a wide enough reason to be used by all those administrators on power trips). The person who deleted this page (tarawa1943) has a few people begging him (yes) to please let them know what they are doing wrong and why his disapproval. I will be happy with the deletion if (1) there is no other like my page (in fact there are 100s --are they all to be deleted?), (2) I was treated like other users. I saw a page (of another actor) with a message on top asking for ref. and that from a year ago. The page however was not deleted (in fact I have refs. but they system did not let me edit my page after I posted it).

Suggestions: Treat new users in a different way by assigning somebody to help them with their mistakes instead of deleting and leaving a message with a vague ref. to not being encyclopedic. Or assign those articles to a special section instead of having all powerful administrators do as they please. Restrict the power of administrators. They should only delete cases of vandalism, copyright infringements, inappropriate language and such things. As it is, they employ their time deleting and causing mischief instead of answering calls for help (I posted one several days ago and it has not been answered) however, the page was deleted as soon as somebody woke up in a bad mood. GinnevraDubois (talk) 01:41, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

• Officially, administrators on English Wikipedia have no special rights or privileges regarding content. It is also not an administrator's responsibility to police the whole encyclopaedia. The presence of unsuitable content or articles in one area is no justification for trying to include similar contraventions in another area. Content that does not contravene policy should be discussed on the relevant talk page, where it is usually decided by local consensus of involved editors, not by an admin. On the other hand, admins are also editors, and may take part in content debates along with everyone else.
• There are systems for mentoring new users. The WP:Teahouse is one that seems a pretty friendly place. There are also some experienced/long-term editors who will personally assist when requested.
• Have you read the policy and guideline pages that might apply to your problems? Any article deletion usually refers to the specific deletion policy which applies in that case.
• If you created an article which was deleted, you can request that it be transferred into your user-space, where you can bring it up to scratch, and get it checked before it is returned to main-space. That way it is very unlikely to be deleted again.
• Users do have recourse against abuse by admins. Be sure before you try to make a case that it is actually abuse according to the policies. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 15:50, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
• Suggestions: Treat new users in a different way by assigning somebody to help them with their mistakes instead of deleting and leaving a message with a vague ref. to not being encyclopedic

Support for this. I issued this in another comment in the "How important is this theme relative to the other 4 themes? Why?" section further up.

Or assign those articles to a special section instead of having all powerful administrators do as they please. Restrict the power of administrators. They should only delete cases of vandalism, copyright infringements, inappropriate language and such things.

Typically articles need to go through an AfD debate before they can be deleted depending on the outcome of the debate. There are a number of policies and guidelines that outline when articles should or shouldn't be deleted. If an article you find worthy to keep has been deleted without such please request undeletion here. As a sidenote those policies and guidelines as well as options for actions should be made more accessible to newcomers (e.g. via "contest this revert"-buttons on revert-diffs that create new talk page entries etc.)

As it is, they employ their time deleting and causing mischief instead of answering calls for help (I posted one several days ago and it has not been answered)

Please note that "several days" is not necessarily much in Wikipedia-time as there really are too few people for too much work here. However I'd also suggest some sort of requirement for stating rationale and answering such request if one deletes any Wikipedia content (including article sections).

Furthermore I think that most younger people off-Wikipedia tend to have a rather inclusive approach and as more of these join Wikipedia will become more inclusive (content-wise).

Also systems for discussion and mentoring of newcomers etc could be built into WikiProjects (into a streamlined WikiProject-system as suggested further up).

--Fixuture (talk) 18:11, 12 June 2017 (UTC)