User:Robert McClenon/Survey Discussion

This discussion at User talk: Jimbo Wales was archived. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:03, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Civility and the WMF again: Where is the Disconnect? - A Survey
I realize that there has been previous discussion of what the WMF can do to foster civility in the English Wikipedia. That discussion here has been archived. I would like to repeat one suggestion in particular. There is a major discrepancy between the stated views of the WMF on civility and the positions defined by "community consensus" at the noticeboards. In particular, civility is a condition of the WMF's Terms of Use that govern all WMF communities, and at least one member of the WMF board, the owner of this talk page, has expressed concerns about the lack of civility enforcement. On the other hand, civility is not enforced at the English Wikipedia noticeboards unless it rises to the level of personal attacks, and not always even then (e.g., the allegation of brainlessness). There is a disconnect between stated overall WMF policy, and its restatement by the owner of this talk page, and its application at the noticeboards. My question is: Where does the disconnect lie? There are at least two explanations. First, the views of the WMF are out of line with those of English Wikipedia editors as a whole. Second, the views of English Wikipedia editors are not properly represented by the editors who take part in discussions at the noticeboards. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:05, 17 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Your two explanations are not mutually exclusive. As we have seen with MediaViewer and the SuperProtect user right, WMF is out of step not only with English Wikipedia but with volunteers in other projects. The hardline Friendly Space/Civility Or Else view, clapping of hands at Wikimania 2014 notwithstanding, does not reflect majority opinion of the volunteer community. There is also something to be said for the idea that acerbic or outspoken people tend to congregate at the noticeboards — and I include you and I and this page in that statement. This is natural, politics attracts a certain "type." I find aggressive language in such places less disturbing than I would in the context of an attack of a good faith editor in mainspace or a mainspace talk page, for example. Civility can not be enforced by the point of a gun — it's an attitude and it takes peacemakers not conflict-escalaters to solve the problem of incivility. Wherever human beings congregate, there will be factionalism and conflict — it is part of human nature. It doesn't need to be mean, however, but reducing meanness isn't gonna happen through establishing a centralized Niceness Police. Carrite (talk) 19:15, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

What the WMF can and should do is to survey the extended English Wikipedia community. A neutrally worded survey should be composed, and posted on project talk pages and sent by email, with mechanisms to prevent stuffing the box. The survey should ask whether editors think that the current level of civility enforcement is appropriate, is too strict, or is too loose. It should also include other questions, such as questions about editor retention. Responses should be stratified as well as possible, such as by gender, by length of time of editing, by frequency of edits, by how frequently they would like to edit, and by other information, some of which can be collected by automation, and some of which can be self-declared (taking into account the uncertainty of self-declaration). If the WMF doesn't have available technical resources to conduct the survey with sufficient detail and stratification, it should consider the reassignment of technical resources from questionable projects such as Flow. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:05, 17 September 2014 (UTC)


 * What theory are you investigating? It seems you are putting the cart ahead of the horse in assuming that this is a major problem that is somehow impairing the project. As for readers, they don't even see this backstage world. As for volunteers, the big majority don't congregate on the drama pages or work on the drama topics or populate the drama task force. If incivility is really the cause of such great destructive loss of editors, why would you survey the active volunteers at all? Ask former editors why they have left and how to fix Wikipedia's problems — that would teach us something. You're already assuming you know the answer though, so the survey results are apt to be skewed if you frame things the way you indicate here. Questions need to be asked with an open mind. As for needing a detailed survey with careful analysis of answers according to defined subgroups — that I agree with wholeheartedly. Carrite (talk) 19:27, 17 September 2014 (UTC) Last edit: Carrite (talk) 19:41, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

If the survey finds that the larger community of editors is consistent with the community of the noticeboards, then the WMF should drop or downgrade its emphasis on civility, and recognize that the current civility climate is what the larger editorial community wants. If the survey finds that the "community" of the noticeboards, that largely ignores civility, does not represent the larger community of editors, then some sort of WMF intervention, in the least disruptive possible form, is needed. (Jimbo Wales has recognized, correctly, that introducing "community organizers" as administrators would be disruptive and would make the situation worse, for instance.) The suggestion of the involvement of a small group of mediators has been made, which would be a good idea if care is taken to avoid the fallacy of moderation. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:05, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

(The gender gap is a special case. Even if the larger editorial community thinks that the disproportion of male editors over female editors is not a problem, it is true that the ratio of male editors to female editors is not representative of the technically literate population.  Some action on the gender gap is needed in any case, but, at the same time, disruptive action on the gender gap, like on civility, would backfire.) Robert McClenon (talk) 18:05, 17 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Instead of hiring 20 more engineers, WMF needs to hire two or three people to do nothing but construction and analysis of surveys — real live stats people, not "good ol' boys"... Hint: They don't have to live in San Francisco. Carrite (talk) 19:45, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Either the WMF has a handle on the views of the larger editorial community, or it does not. A survey is needed, and either action or inaction. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:05, 17 September 2014 (UTC)


 * The owner of this talk page has himself been somewhat less than civil on a number of occaisions. Sauce for the goose... DuncanHill (talk) 18:19, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

One of the many problems with civility enforcement is related to the famous Potter Stewart comment. When asked if he could define pornography he responded, "I know it when I see it". While many would agree that they might struggle with a formal defintion of civility, they beleive they have no trouble identifying examples of incivility. I don't doubt this, however what some may miss is that many of these identifications will not overlap from person to person.

That leaves us with a dual problem: it is hard enough to codify a set of rules when one has difficulty defining the terms but add to that the likely fact that different members of the community have very different opinions on what type of responses are considered incivil.

The community claims it wants a civil environment but when it comes to actually enforcing this, it becomes very difficult. If we do draw everyone's map of incivility would be a set of overlapping Venn diagrams with a rather common overlap. That means we have a relatively small number of sanctions for civility in which there is little disagreement. We have a large number of attempted sanctions where a significant portion of the community disagrees.

This leaves an outsider observing that there are relatively few sanctions that stick and quite a few items of perceived incivility that go on challenged leaving an outsider to think that Wikipedia is not particularly interested in enforcing civility.-- S Philbrick (Talk)  20:10, 17 September 2014 (UTC)


 * It's pretty generalization, but what you need is research of ANIs in which civility was and was not enforced, who the editors were, what the issues were,who the closing admins were (if there was a close) and see if there is some discernable pattern that must be dealt with. One of the suggested researches I've read about that I'm compiling on a list to be used some unknown time and unknown place. :-) Carolmooredc  (Talkie-Talkie) 16:33, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
 * That phrase 'must be dealt with' could be seen as intimidation, but as long as you stick to ANIs in which you're not involved, and those you may be be seen to have a COI with due to other ANIs or ArbCom decisions, then why not? AnonNep (talk) 17:02, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
 * [Insert: Sorry. To be clear, I meant compiling a list of suggested research topics (plus policy options, individual initiatives, etc.) not me compiling a list [Later clarification: of hundreds of ANIs] for research. I was thinking of the kind of research the Foundation would fund by academics. It's far more work than I want to do. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 18:48, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I will help the researcher cut to the chase. The community of volunteers has a consensus as to what constitutes and does not constitute a personal attack. Incivility not rising to the level of a personal attack is generally not sanctioned because it is largely in the eye of the beholder, difficult to define and not the object of consensus in any event. You might think what I have just said is bullshit, but it pretty much summarizes the situation. (And I used the word bullshit pointedly, since there are some who would argue that that was "uncivil." Was it? Was it not? Difficult to say, yes? What if I had said, "I think the idea that there is a growing problem of incivility at Wikipedia and that this is a primary cause of the decline in editor count is bullshit"??? — Compare and contrast to a: "You are..." sort of assertion. Therein lies the "free speech" rub... I don't want a clique of paid bureaucrats arbitrarily deciding what is "civil" or "uncivil" — with the determination ultimately based largely on who the Civility Police want to "get" at the moment... ) Carrite (talk) 17:15, 18 September 2014 (UTC) Last edit: Carrite (talk) 17:22, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
 * As for the above, I think you are replying to another proposal by someone else? Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 18:48, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
 * No. Carrite (talk) 21:22, 18 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Application of WP:CIVIL, must be ironed out among administrators themselves. They do the blocking & unblocking. Conflicting interpretations by them, doesn't help matters. GoodDay (talk) 19:34, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
 * At this Editor Retention thread there's some discussions of getting admins views on the topic and I have an idea for a scorecard of different civility issues, how they might be weighted in any admin discussion, etc. Haven't had time to put together yet. But got the table matrix finished anyway. Carolmooredc  (Talkie-Talkie) 19:52, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Carol, up above you wrote, "what you need is research of ANIs in which civility was and was not enforced, who the editors were, what the issues were,who the closing admins were (if there was a close) and see if there is some discernible pattern that must be dealt with". I would like to add my support for this ambitious project.  Right now, I'm trying to figure out how to data mine the 3RR noticeboards.  I want to be able to view how many admins (or users with advanced permissions) have ever been blocked for edit warring in comparison to editors without advanced permissions.  At least two users (including myself) have observed admins edit warring with impunity. We really need to have data driven policies and guidelines, and this applies to civility enforcement as well.  I've attempted to modify the edit warring policy to address these observations, only to be met by serious distractions and diversions, while supporters of these changes are getting drowned out by admins attempting to change the subject. I feel the same thing has happened to editors who wish to enforce civility.  Any attempt to improve the policies and guidelines is met with dozens of distractions and derision. One thing that would help greatly is an organized, structural process for changing and proposing policies and guidelines that would filter out the distractions.  The addition of trained mediators as you previously suggested would also benefit constructive discussion, as we are approaching a point where moderation is needed in order to progress as a community. Viriditas (talk) 01:09, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I think the fasted way would be to look at the block log of every admin who has edited in the last year and then search the 3RR board for reports near the time of the block. Chillum Need help? Type  01:23, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Comments
User:Carrite and I may disagree as to whether there is a civility problem in the English Wikipedia, but we agree that a survey would be informative. Either the "community" at the noticeboards is not representative of the larger community of editors, and there is a disconnect between the noticeboard community and the larger community, in which case some sort of action by the WMF is in order, or the larger community does not perceive a problem, in which case inaction by the WMF is in order. I agree with Carrite that hiring at least one person with real experience in surveys and statistics would be a good idea. Carrite refers to "not good ol' boys". I am interested in who he is deprecating. Carrite proposes that the survey also include former editors. I agree. Both current and former editors should be surveyed. I agree with the comments of User:Sphilbrick about the complexity of defining civility, and think that a survey could help to clarify what the varied opinions of editors are. I think that Sphilbrick and I are in agreement that there is very little enforcement of civility except for actual personal attacks. (I would add that, in my opinion, some personal attacks go ignored also.) Robert McClenon (talk) 17:25, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

User:Carolmooredc proposes what appears to be an entirely different type of survey, of WP:ANI threads. I don't understand what she wants well enough to comment one way or the other, but that is an entirely different survey than I was proposing. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:25, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree that the results of the survey are likely to provide value. I haven't jumped on board with strong support mainly for cost-benefit reasons. Proper construction of a survey would not be cheap especially when you accept that a proper survey would include former editors in addition to editors and ideally members of the public who have chosen never to become an editor perhaps because of the environment. That's not cheap. There are lots of things that need to be done and I'm honestly not sure that this falls high enough on the list to justify the expenditure. Now if an outside body such as an academic research center finds it a subject worthy of interest, I'll gladly look at the results.


 * I agree that Carolmooredc's proposal is different. But I do see value. One important difference is that a proper survey is outside the scope of what the community can do on its own. That sort of survey requires foundation or other external funding. A review of ANI threads at least conceptually could be done by members of the community. There are issues of selection bias and other concerns but if someone does such a study it would be worth looking at.-- S Philbrick (Talk)  17:44, 19 September 2014 (UTC)


 * I partly disagree with Sphilbrick as to the cost issue. It is true that a proper survey is outside the scope of what the community can do, but I was identifying it in the scope of what the WMF can do, which was part of what Jimbo had originally asked.  The WMF has developers who are in need of assignments, because otherwise they work on "improvements" such as Visual Editor and Flow that the community does not need.  (Media Viewer at least is oriented largely to the readers, but Visual Editor and Flow are "improvements" intended to serve the community of editors that many of the editors do not want.)  The WMF thinks that action needs to be taken to improve civility.  The WMF can use its own resources to determine whether there is a problem.  Jimbo had proposed hiring mediators.  Is there a problem for which professional mediators would be an appropriate solution?  The WMF can hire one survey person and otherwise reassign its developers to determine whether and what the problem is.  Robert McClenon (talk) 18:54, 19 September 2014 (UTC)