User talk:Sue Gardner/4

Nomination of Alison Kosik for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Alison Kosik is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Articles for deletion/Alison Kosik until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on good quality evidence, and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article.  DGG ( talk ) 05:13, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 02 January 2012

 * Read this Signpost in full
 * Single-page
 * Unsubscribe
 * EdwardsBot (talk) 16:31, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

General assemblies
Hey Sue, the General assembly (Occupy movement) red link you created back in Novemeber has been filled in. Among journalists, Nathan Schneider has the best understanding of the GAs. Thought it was worth making sure you know about this as he's indicated Wikipedia was instrumental in selecting the location for the very first assembly, even though the entry was only "skeletal" at the time. What a difference a wee wiki stub can make, Lol! FeydHuxtable (talk) 18:35, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

WMUK Board Meeting Nov 2011
I just watched/listened to the first third of this. I was pleasantly surprised to hear what information the Foundation knows (and has studied) about editor retention, policy cruft and differences between the project in the initial years and now. I also thought you did a very good job speaking and answering questions (it was a little hard to hear the questions due to the recording quality, which is no fault of your own). I thought you did well enough to warrant a compliment on your talk page. :-) Killiondude (talk) 07:31, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 09 January 2012

 * Read this Signpost in full
 * Single-page
 * Unsubscribe
 * EdwardsBot (talk) 05:08, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Notability
Greetings! You have been randomly selected to receive an invitation to participate in the request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Notability. Should you wish to respond to the invitation, your contribution to this discussion will be very much appreciated! If in doubt, please see suggestions for responding. If you do not wish to receive these types of notices, please remove your name from Feedback request service. — RFC&#32;bot (talk) 05:15, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

A cookie for you!

 * Err, yes, I found an image as part of Wikipedia Loves Malayalam, and have added it to the article. Cheers, --Rsrikanth05 (talk) 14:49, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks Rsrikanth05! I don't really know anything about the Aranjanam: I first came across a reference to it in a novel I was reading. I was curious so I researched it a little, and wrote the article based on what I found. I was surprised it didn't exist yet. There is lots of writing still to do on Wikipedia! Thanks Sue Gardner (talk) 21:32, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 16 January 2012

 * Read this Signpost in full
 * Single-page
 * Unsubscribe
 * EdwardsBot (talk) 06:59, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

fear over facts
I discussed you and your role in this blackout in a blogpost here such that if there are any inaccuracies in my account I welcome corrections.--Brian Dell (talk) 05:21, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
 * You misspelled "public" in the third paragraph, but I, for what it's worth, agree with what you wrote. Cla68 (talk) 10:04, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Wikinews interview translated
Thanks for the interview for Wikinews. It's been translated into Czech, Farsi and Spanish. —Tom Morris (talk) 02:37, 20 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks Tom! Sue Gardner (talk) 21:17, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Any reason to work on editor retention instead of admins?

 * Hi Sue, these questions were archived off of Jimmy's talk page twice before he replied. Would you please answer them? 67.6.163.68 (talk) 20:34, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Jimbo, do you think administrator attrition is causing editor attrition or more the other way around, on balance? Are there any ways that the more quickly declining admin ranks could be caused by decreased editor retention? There are several reasons that fewer admins cause editor biting. Consider how fast WP:ANI is archived compared to about five years ago during the fastest growth period. Is there any reason to believe that admins make better decisions under one fifth the available amount of time? If it were entirely up to you, how would you prefer Foundation resources be allocated towards editor retention and admin retention, in terms of percentages of the entire budget? My opinion is 25% for admins and 1% for editors. 67.6.191.142 (talk) 12:59, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
 * As neither admins or non-admin editors get any resources that I am aware of, dividing zero as you suggest should not be difficult. Personally, I think the barriers of entry are higher standards (thus, anyone cannot just edit it, at least for an article which is watched, without a significant risk of being reverted for good cause) and too much drama (the subsequent condescending note or block notice left on talk).  I happen to agree that we are no longer just looking for bodies with fingers, and it is more important to concentrate on keeping experienced editors (who get bored or offended, and leave) and giving them resources to do their jobs.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:32, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you, but in fact according to the foundation has decided to devote considerable resources to editor retention, which seems foolish to me as it has leveled off to a slope sustainable for decades, while all the admins will be gone in less than seven years at the rate they've been leaving. I hope that Jimbo will be able to address the question. 67.6.191.142 (talk) 15:08, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Editor attrition is likely to be expected for a project involving documentation of knowledge. At the beginning all the easy stuff that just anyone can do is done. Ahem, Barbie, Easy bake oven, Kim Kardashian


 * Then it is followed by the harder work of citing and rewriting the more complex and technical articles for accuracy and completeness. That work is not as much "fun" so not as many people want to do it (or due to the costs of published scientific papers and industry standards, not many people CAN do it).. Tumor necrosis factor-alpha


 * In the end I think it'll be either the obsessed or the asbergers/autistics (or the in-field scientists/engineers -- which may or may not be classified separately from those already mentioned, heh) that really flesh out the niggly ultra-technical stuff.


 * So the slowdown seems entirely expected. It will likely never drop off completely, though it is possible for some articles to be eventually be "locked for completeness" at some point, just to reduce the vandalism hassle. DMahalko (talk) 15:17, 10 December 2011 (UTC)
 * This is broadly correct. By about 2007 Wikipedia already had articles on most things that most people care about. What is left is cleanup and QC, along with fleshing out more technical or esoteric topics. Those activities don't attract the masses. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 15:31, 10 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree, and believe that supports the assertion that the Foundation should be focusing on administrator retention instead of general editor retention. 67.6.163.68 (talk) 00:04, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Sue asked Maryana or I to give you some more details about this. I think the first thing that needs to be said is that we don't see it as an "either-or" choice. Unless someone from the Foundation specifically says, "new editor retention" (or engagement, or recruitment, you get the idea) we do not mean that the only important thing to focus on is throwing new editors into the mix. When you suggest that the viability of the project and the health of the community are intimately tied to a strong group of admins, no one at the WMF disagrees with that. However, so far we've found that there are many variables possibly contributing to the flat-lining or decline in Wikipedia communities, and that looking at only one issue like administrator "bitey-ness" is too narrow. That's why we're doing things like facilitating WP:UWTEST, trying new feedback mechanisms and doing larger projects like writing a rich text editor (more engineering stuff here). As for how to address the admin issue... I think a large part of that lies in the community-created policies and process around adminship, and despite best efforts things like RFA are really thorny problems. I think there are plenty of longtime Wikipedians at the WMF who would be interested in helping new reform efforts in the area of adminship (personally I think Derrick Coetzee's proposal for 10 day trial use of the tools is great) but at this point we would rather in be a role supporting community change from within, rather than trying to impose it in the area of adminship. Steven Walling (WMF) &bull; talk   00:43, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Regarding admin shortage - the key is measuring the backlog of admin tasks over an extended period to see if there is an increase over time.


 * Regarding "completeness" of wikipedia, yes alot of easy stuff is done, but it is only when one delves into content for an extended period that one realises how many huge gaps there still are, both in articles and chunks missing from articles. Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:00, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
 * To add to the completeness theory commentary, I will just note that, "[As of 2009] ...there are more Wikipedia articles written about Antarctica than all but one of the 53 countries in Africa" . This may have been balanced slightly in the last couple years, but I would not be surprised to see how bereft we are of information on some very basic topics still. Steven Walling (WMF) &bull; talk   01:11, 13 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Steven. Could you please address the question of causation including the independent variable of the length of time to archive on WP:ANI? In particular, running Granger causality in R on a low resolution version of the two time series very strongly suggests that admin attrition is causing the decline in the number of editors, and there is only a very small chance that general editor retention is independent of admin retention. I am convinced that including the time to archive from ANI would further strengthen those results considerably. Would you please ask Erik Zachte for his opinion on the matter? 67.6.163.68 (talk) 22:18, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not a data scientist, but it sounds to me like measuring the level of conflict on ANI is rather a side issue compared to measuring say, what happens when someone's first edits are reverted or deleted. You could draw some kind of valuable correlation between a rise in administrative conflict and a decline in editor retention, but when you get down to brass tacks about causality, most new editors do not encounter an admin (and definitely not a noticeboard like ANI) in their first attempts at contributing. Steven Walling (WMF) &bull; talk   22:46, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I was suggesting that the amount of stress admins are under is affected by how much time they have to make decisions at ANI, and that in turn affects the amount of time they devote to vandalism patrolling, new articles, and speedy deletion. Do you agree it is more worthwhile to measure than speculate? Also, do you know whether the Foundation intends to survey admins? 67.6.163.68 (talk) 03:00, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
 * ANI seems a poor measure to worry about. Some threads will appear on ANI, and they can be resolved easily and swiftly (giving out a warning, referring on to a more appropriate noticeboard like WP:DRN or WP:RSN or whatever, blocking, protecting etc.) and some require a lot more thought. The fact that behaviour on ANI changes may reflect the fact that some of the content disputes have been farmed off to WP:DRN or that more user behaviour issues are handled on user talk pages or article talk pages, or perhaps that just as the easy articles have already been created, the easy disputes have already played out.
 * If the contention is that there is a shortage of admins and that RfA isn't turning out enough new admins to make up for the decline in the older admins, that would be seen across all sorts of admin activity - deletion, WP:RFPP, WP:RFPERM, WP:AIV, WP:RM, and, yes, drama boards. I fail to see why picking out ANI is better than using other administrative tasks to measure admin issues. —Tom Morris (talk) 21:17, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Granger causality test

 * Okay, let's ignore the archive time on ANI and all the other sources of admin stress, which I personally believe are the means by which admin attrition contributes to editor attrition. I've digitized some higher resolution data that I had been working with earlier, so I feel comfortable with this Granger causality test of the two time series representing editor and admin attrition without any higher-order factors:

R version 2.13.1 Patched (2011-09-08 r56986) Copyright (C) 2011 The R Foundation for Statistical Computing ... > library(lmtest) ... > # active editors, from http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia_active_contributors_trend.jpg > editors <- c(46630, 44891, 46087, 42609, 41957, 42717, 40978, 40109, 39783, 40000, 39130, 36087) > > # active admins, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship/Archive_214#Active_administrator_stats_.282007.E2.80.93present.29 > admins <- c(929, 1011, 989, 986, 966, 942, 918, 916, 880, 882, 843, 817) > > grangertest(admins, editors, 2) Granger causality test Model 1: editors ~ Lags(editors, 1:2) + Lags(admins, 1:2) Model 2: editors ~ Lags(editors, 1:2) Res.Df Df     F  Pr(>F) 1     5                     2      7 -2 6.4937 0.04074 * --- Signif. codes: 0 ‘***’ 0.001 ‘**’ 0.01 ‘*’ 0.05 ‘.’ 0.1 ‘ ’ 1
 * That means there is only one chance in 25 that declining admins are not causing declining editors, assuming that process takes six months (2 quarterly periods of lag.) Therefore, even without going into the details of the mechanisms involved, the Granger test tells us that declining admins are causing declining editors with a certainty considered statistically significant in the sciences.
 * So, given that the Foundation just raised $20 million and has another $12 million in the bank, I think there are only two questions:
 * (1) When is the Foundation going to survey inactive admins to figure out why they are leaving?
 * (2) Why not pay admins a stipend if it turns out that they're going broke supporting the project?
 * I have plenty of anecdotal evidence that a large number of admins are going broke because of their devotion to their volunteer efforts. There is only one way to find out: ask! Please ask. After all the time, work, and money spent on figuring out why editors are leaving, since we can be 96% confident that it's mostly because admins are leaving, it is time to start asking admins why they have left. 67.6.170.89 (talk) 19:06, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Just have to note that paying editors who previously volunteered their time won't ever be a solution. Research has shown that once you start paying people for work they previously did just because it was a good thing to do, they stop doing it in their free time. Clay Shirky talks about this idea a lot.
 * --Qwerty0 (talk) 06:01, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
 * There is a vast body of work on this topic, called motivation crowding theory. The great news is that while the authorities on the subject have always said that monetary rewards can strengthen intrinsic motivation under some conditions, recent work suggests that those conditions have become far more well understood. For example:
 * "intrinsic interest is actually higher under [pay for individual performance]" -- Fang, M. and Gerhart, B. (2011) "Does pay for performance diminish intrinsic interest?" International Journal of Human Resource Management
 * "Median FRT [response time] was reduced from 90 to 70 days, a 22% reduction in the presence of payments. With payments, only 1% of the FRTs exceeded six months; without payments, 16% of the FRTs exceeded six months." -- Thompson, G.D., et al. (2010) "Does Paying Referees Expedite Reviews? Results of a Natural Experiment" Economic Journal 76(3):678-92
 * "monetary payments as well as intrinsic motivation have roles in the real-life decision to supply volunteer work, but monetary rewards do not crowd out intrinsic motivation" -- Fiorillo, D. (2011) "Do monetary rewards crowd out intrinsic motivations of volunteers? Some empirical evidence for Italian volunteers" Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics 82(2):139–65
 * Selery (talk) 21:17, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your note and the intrinsic encouragement, Sue. :-) I expanded Motivation crowding theory and I think you will really enjoy the three additional secondary sources I found for the second third paragraph. Selery (talk) 22:34, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

I copied this section back out of the archives to let you know I've added an additional paragraph on the backward bending supply curve of labour to the Motivation crowding theory article, which helps to explain why one side of the controversy on this subject in 1995-2005 was discredited. Did you have any particular ideas for article expansion? I've asked around at peer review and a couple articles and wikiprojects, but I'm having some real trouble with further expansion. Please help! Selery (talk) 15:37, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Well that's about the most dubious use of a Granger test I've ever seen. The test you've conducted says nothing concrete about causality, it only suggests that the two variables are interrelated under the (unsubstantiated) assumption that no other variables are in effect. A Granger test is designed to work with only two variables and can be very misleading if there is actually a third (or more) variable at play. To properly analyse this you would need to conduct a regression test of some form across multiple variables. Manning (talk) 12:26, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Replied at m:Talk:Inactive administrators survey. 85.230.127.113 (talk) 18:10, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Although I'm not necessarily suggesting any action be taken, I think it's worth noting that at least one of the IP's posting here is apparently m:User:James Salsman, who has been banned (not just blocked) from the English Wikipedia. Kevin (talk) 20:53, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion
Greetings! You have been randomly selected to receive an invitation to participate in the request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion. Should you wish to respond to the invitation, your contribution to this discussion will be very much appreciated! If in doubt, please see suggestions for responding. If you do not wish to receive these types of notices, please remove your name from Feedback request service. — RFC&#32;bot (talk) 06:15, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 23 January 2012

 * Read this Signpost in full
 * Single-page
 * Unsubscribe
 * EdwardsBot (talk) 19:12, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 30 January 2012

 * Read this Signpost in full
 * Single-page
 * Unsubscribe
 * EdwardsBot (talk) 04:15, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification
Hi. When you recently edited Survival sex, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Shelter (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ* Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 10:57, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 06 February 2012

 * Read this Signpost in full
 * Single-page
 * Unsubscribe
 * EdwardsBot (talk) 00:35, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Template talk:Under discussion
Greetings! You have been randomly selected to receive an invitation to participate in the request for comment on Template talk:Under discussion. Should you wish to respond to the invitation, your contribution to this discussion will be very much appreciated! If in doubt, please see suggestions for responding. If you do not wish to receive these types of notices, please remove your name from Feedback request service. — RFC&#32;bot (talk) 06:15, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Core contest....
I've had to put The Core Contest on hold for the time being until I can get a chapter interested in funding the vouchers/prizes, as this microgrant discussion has gone dormant. Rather busy anyway. However, I did come up with another idea - see Talk:Main_Page...Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:38, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Update: We're in business...
Okay, WMUK have agreed to fund some vouchers so I'll set the dates from March 10 to 31, and write a blurb for the signpost and village pump etc. We're in business...Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:41, 19 February 2012 (UTC)


 * One week to go till kickoff....Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:30, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Donkey punch - way to attract more women to the project?
Hi Sue,

I was very tempted to add the following to the template at the top of the Donkey punch article just now, ...

This article is about the urban legend that became a sexual act, probably partly thanks to it being deemed worthy of coverage on Wikipedia. Readers who want this article and the animated image that illustrated it until recently deleted, please have a look at the current discussion on the talk page, by clicking the Talk tab at the top – next to the Article tab. Heartfelt apologies to porn actresses Deja Daire, Rachel Luv, Alex Divine, and Haley Scott who were donkey-punched on video, and to every woman who had to suffer through similar abuse because this article gave it some kind of legitimacy and/or gave the wrong people the wrong kind of idea in the name of free speech. The project failed you when the people who wrote this article in the first place and those who decided to keep it should have known better. We can do better. And now for some messages from the resident robotic template ... For the film, see Donkey Punch (film). For the television episode, see Donkey Punch (Robot Chicken episode).

... but then my husband talked me out of it, telling me that this would probably get me banned from the project like so many other content contributors who dared trying to hold WP accountable long before my time. IMO, the above statement would just be expressing what many womyn readers think but don't know how to add. Regarding your intention of trying to attract more lady writers to the project, I'd be grateful if you could weigh in on the article talk page. Or even better, how about banning all the users currently arguing in favor of keeping the animated image showing a senseless act of violence against a woman?

Regards,

DracoE 19:13, 14 February 2012 (UTC)


 * The Commons deletion request for the animated image involved is instructive of the social dynamics involved in this almost entirely male, mostly caucasian environment. That is not the only article which is considered "notable" solely because of the controversy which it engendered on Wikipedia -- this one is another. As Sue says on her user page, she won't intervene in editorial disputes, although perhaps that will change as she becomes more experienced as an editor. The proper way to address this is to start a Request for Comments on the Village pump (proposals) petitioning the community to declare topics which would not be notable were it not for their notoriety as Wikipedia articles unfit for any further troll-feeding and therefore non-notable. Good luck. 83.142.230.178 (talk) 19:59, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 13 February 2012

 * Read this Signpost in full
 * Single-page
 * Unsubscribe
 * EdwardsBot (talk) 04:10, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 20 February 2012

 * Read this Signpost in full
 * Single-page
 * Unsubscribe
 * EdwardsBot (talk) 23:56, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Template talk:Expand language
Greetings! You have been randomly selected to receive an invitation to participate in the request for comment on Template talk:Expand language. Should you wish to respond to the invitation, your contribution to this discussion will be very much appreciated! If in doubt, please see suggestions for responding. If you do not wish to receive these types of notices, please remove your name from Feedback request service. — RFC&#32;bot (talk) 07:15, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 27 February 2012

 * Read this Signpost in full
 * Single-page
 * Unsubscribe
 * EdwardsBot (talk) 02:17, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 05 March 2012

 * Read this Signpost in full
 * Single-page
 * Unsubscribe
 * EdwardsBot (talk) 17:01, 6 March 2012 (UTC)