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Superprotect, one year later; a contentious RfA
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By Resident Mario and Gamaliel

Superprotect, one year later

Superprotect is now one year old, as noted in a discussion in the Wikimedia-L mailing list this week. Superprotect was a novel page protection level implemented on August 10 last year, without warning, to allow Wikimedia Foundation staff to resolve an ongoing wheel war with community administrators on the German Wikipedia; the administrators were attempting to use a change to a MediaWiki configuration page to locally disable the then-new MediaViewer software.

The administrators were acting on the results of a community poll that had reached an undisputed consensus: the community's editors (mirroring editors on the English Wikipedia as well) regarded Media Viewer as an unfinished product—one that was not ready for use on their project. But the requisite change was rejected by the Foundation, which, as the owner of the servers, was in a position to overrule community consensus. This was not the first time that the WMF had overruled community consensus. "Limits to configuration changes" on Meta lists types of instances that may involve central overruling, stating that:

The page lists nine instances in which a change was rejected outright and three in which the change was partially rejected. Before superprotect, the incident that caused the most social tension was ACTRIAL, a successful April 2011 proposal on the English Wikipedia to limit article creation to autoconfirmed accounts; it was similarly blocked at the implementation level. The Foundation's rejection provoked a significant conflagration with the community, which included terse conversations between editors and Foundation staff in the fallout reportage in the Signpost. This, however, was nowhere near as controversial as superprotect would come to be.

The German Wikipedia administrator realized that, unlike the case of ACTRIAL, it was possible to force through the change they wished to make with only a local edit to that site's MediaWiki page. They were promptly reverted by Foundation staff and informed that making "breaking" changes to the wiki configuration files was improper. The administrator persisted, and the WMF introduced and immediately applied what it called "superprotect" to the page.

Enough words have been written about the ensuing firestorm. The meta-wiki "superprotect" page lists no fewer than eight separate statements and consultations released by the Foundation in the wake of the resulting outrage. In the case of MediaViewer, the WMF stood firm on refusing to allow it to be disabled—and enforced this by threat of de-sysopping—and superprotect remains installed on the German Wikipedia, although it was taken off the page in question. An open letter circulated in the community condemning the action, garnering almost a thousand signatures. An English Wikipedia arbitration committee case was opened, with animated debate, and closed without action. For Signpost coverage from the time, refer to the Media Viewer series.

The memory of superprotect appears to be fresh in the hearts and minds of both experienced editors and Foundation personnel. Since the event, executive director Lila Tretikov focused WMF staff on increasing community feedback as much as possible—a big plank in Tretikov's platform for the organization. A prominent question of community candidates for the Board of Trustees just months ago concerned superprotect. Two of the re-standing candidates were sympathetic to the issue, while the third was on the fence; none was re-elected, whereas three strongly opposed to the use of superprotect were (prominent long-time editor and superprotect critic Pete Forsyth (Peteforsyth) was almost giddy with the results).

What do you think about the issue? The Signpost is currently soliciting two essays on the propriety of superprotect from the community—one in support, one against—soon to be published in a forum op-ed. R

Contentious RfA draws nearly 300 participants

Votes per day in the Request for Adminship of Liz

English Wikipedian Liz was nominated for administrator on July 27.

A current trainee clerk for the Arbitration Committee, she has been editing since 2013 with her current account, and since 2007 with a previous account (she has also done a great deal of categorization work in the Signpost archives). She was nominated by three administrators: Worm That Turned, a former arbitrator, Yunshui, a current arbitrator, and The Blade of the Northern Lights. Their nomination described her as "a versatile candidate", who "has demonstrated empathy, understanding and helpfulness" and is "a model of diplomacy and discretion when dealing with complex, heated issues".

The nomination quickly gained much support, with more than 100 supporters in two days. However, concerns were raised about Liz's focus on noticeboard discussions and wikignome activity, and a perceived lack of content creation. In the words of one editor, she has a "disproportionate focus on drama boards as opposed to content involvement".

While a number of her advocates highlighted her support for content creation, Liz wrote "the role of administrators is undermined if there is the impression that there are different standards for behavior based on an editor's contributions and the view that some editors are unblockable", a statement that may have been perceived negatively. DD2K, a supporter, wrote that many voters opposed her nomination "because Liz dared make the statement that content creators should not be given carte blanche exemptions from the rules. Everyone knows this."

The nomination attracted offsite attention, including discussions on Wikipediocracy and r/KotakuinAction, a pro-Gamergate forum on Reddit. While not a named party to the Gamergate arbitration case, she is one of many Wikipedians whose involvement in editing and discussing Gamergate-related articles has drawn the ire of Gamergate supporters (as has this author).

Bureaucrats struck votes and comments by two accounts thought to be a "sole purpose GamerGate account". One of them, Auerbachkeller, belongs to Slate tech writer David Auerbach, who lodged complaints about the bureaucrat decision on two different Wikipedia noticeboards. (Last year, he commented frequently on arbitration case pages and got into a public spat with one of the named parties to the case.) The offsite discussions and stricken comments prompted many users to complain that the nomination had fallen victim to canvassing.

The nomination was closed on August 4 with 200 supports, 72 opposes, and nine neutrals. Requests for adminship states that "most of those above 75 percent approval pass and most of those below 70 percent fail". With support at about 73.5%, a bureaucrat discussion was opened to determine whether or not the nomination would pass. Following the discussion, Liz was promoted to administrator on August 6.

When asked on her user talkpage if she thought gender played a role in the discussion, she wondered whether her female username prompted editors to react differently: "I was struck by how some of the critical comments were very personal, about me as a person, my faults and why I was unsuitable. I've participated in over a dozen RfAs and probably read over two dozen more in preparing for this RfA and it's not typical that voters get that personal. [...] I think this happens to more often to women than men. [...] One is not judged by one's skills but how you make other people feel." G


Brief notes

Slides from this month's metrics and activities meeting.
  • Metrics and activities: The monthly metrics and activities IRC meeting was held by the Wikimedia Foundation on August 6. R
  • Netherlands survey: Wikimedia Netherlands have released the results of an editor survey conducted on the site. The conclusions, drawn against a sample size of 451 respondents, are worth reading for anyone interested in editor demographics. The recent full-scale general editor survey conducted by the Wikimedia Foundation was concluded in 2012, and although a follow-up is under discussion local surveys provide the most recent data. A few data points of interest: 57% of Dutch editors also edit the English Wikipedia some of the time, with 13% reporting that it is their primary wiki; awareness of Wikimedia Netherlands is high (sampling bias?) and the gender ratio is pegged at 89% to 11%. R
  • Round-table notes: The notes from a community round-table have been posted to meta. The focus of the discussion was product development interactions between community volunteers and software architects on staff.
  • WLM: Organization of the 2015 round of Wiki Loves Monuments has begun. R
  • 1 Million: Fæ published a blog post on the Wikimedia Blog this week describing his experiences getting to a million images uploaded on Commons. R
  • Natural world editing: Wikimedia India published a summary of the outcomes from a natural world editathon held in Bangalore last week. R
  • This Month: in GLAM has been published. R
  • New administrators: Cyclonebiskit and Liz (see the story above) are this week's newest English Wikipedia administrators. R
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  • I agree that Superprotect was a huge mistake, but such hyperbole makes it impossible to take your comment seriously. Gamaliel (talk) 05:19, 14 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • I amended my comment. This should (hopefully) solve the issue. TomStar81 (Talk) 05:24, 14 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      • Thank you. I worry that hyperbolic comments may be taken as "evidence" by some in the WMF that the unruly community is in need of the adult supervision only they can provide. You can see the images produced by opponents on Commons; many are quite preposterous and some are in very poor taste. Superprotection deserves strong objections and even contempt, but we should keep things in proper perspective. Gamaliel (talk) 15:00, 14 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • With around 35 or so employees, some of them very senior, fired, time limited contracts expired, or simply voluntarily moved on since Tretikov took office, it's possible that WMF opinion could now be swayed to accepting major policy changes demanded by major Wikipedia communities. Otherwise if one day the Foundation suddenly finds itself with a multimillion $ server farm and nobody writing articles for it or to maintain the pages, it will be their own fault. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:12, 14 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I agree Superprotect should never be used to force cosmetic software changes on a community that does not want them. While I do not think this will ever be attempted again, I think it would be good for the WMF to come out with a statement to that effect. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:54, 14 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
That would mean a substantial weakening of the movement's ability to improve Mediawiki—a selling out of the WMF's ability to steer a little cohesion into disparate communities. Tony (talk) 12:41, 15 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Tony1: That's just silly logic, though you are not the first to advance it. It does not follow from "Past software deployments have met resistance" that "Wikimedians are fundamentally resistant to change." That interpretation, when asserted by WMF personnel (in the past, I have not heard it so much recently) has been highly self-serving, illustrating an important COI the organization has in such matters. -Pete (talk) 00:26, 13 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The support percentage for Liz's RfA should be reported, using the standard method of calculating it, as about 73.5%, not 71%. I believe the report here is including the neutrals in calculating the ratio, which is not how it's generally done. Newyorkbrad (talk) 09:04, 14 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I should have looked it up instead of just doing the math myself. I'll correct my error. Thank you. Gamaliel (talk) 15:00, 14 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Precisely true. I did not vote on it as I saw the problems inherent in taking any position at all (ArbSpeak). To the point, moreover, is that discussions about many RfX issues (not just the case discussed supra) are now in process (Wikipedia_talk:Reflections_on_RfX inter alia). Collect (talk) 15:05, 14 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • It would help if someone from WMF would communicate to say "we trust the community (which created us) and will not oppose them, except where it is clearly our legal bounden duty."
  • And it is most satisfying to see Liz appointed admin, where I'm sure she will do sterling work
All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 23:13, 14 August 2015 (UTC).[reply]
  • I read Peteforsyths blog post about the WMF board election results and disagree with this article's characterization of his remarks as "almost giddy". Pete was gracious and generous in his praise of the defeated incumbents, and acknowledged that he was not a good candidate himself, which is why he withdrew. I see no need to use a phrase to describe Pete's writing which, in my mind, carries negative connotations. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 00:46, 15 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thank you for saying this, Cullen328. While I tend to agree, I'm not too worried about it -- Resident Mario provided a good overview of the history, and that's the important part. The one thing I'd have liked to see was a note that I was the author of the letter -- which I think would help readers understand why my reaction was relevant. But, meh. Good piece overall, glad it was published. I had not previously noticed Doc James' comment above, which I believe is the first time a Trustee (after election) has emphasized the importance of a public comment about related practices going forward. Thanks for that, James. -Pete (talk) 00:22, 13 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Superprotect was a convenient way for the WMF to achieve their short term goal of implementing a technical solution. It's no secret the foundation believes that technical "solutions" will solve falling activity and attract new editors. I do not believe their focus on technical solutions to be the answer to the current problems and in doing so they have turned their back on the current community which will continue to shrink away by being alienated and overridden. Mkdwtalk 03:40, 16 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Gamaliel: This was a while back and the page has been blanked so you might have forgotten, but shouldn't you disclose that Auerbach was quite critical of you in his workshop comments? Brustopher (talk) 23:42, 19 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Gamaliel, your description of the interaction between me and a now-sitebanned user who (according to Jimmy Wales) committed a BLP violation against me and subsequently harassed me across several other websites as "a spat" is noted. My participation in the case stemmed, of course, from the actions of that party to the case, who was ultimately site-banned at the close of the case. Auerbachkeller (talk) 03:05, 20 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    According to Jimmy Wales? Mercy me, it MUST be serious. Parabolist (talk) 03:12, 20 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The Signpost: doing it for free since 2005.
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