Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2016-02-03/News and notes



Harassment survey results released
As announced by the WMF's Patrick Earley on the Wikimedia-l mailing list, a report on the results of the 2015 Harassment Survey has been released:


 * An overview of the results:


 * Of the 3,845 Wikimedians who participated, 38% of the respondents could confidently recognise that they had been harassed, while 15% were unsure and 47% were confident that they had not been harassed. Similarly, 51% witnessed others being harassed, while 17% were unsure and 32% did not witness harassment.
 * 79% of survey participants identified as male; 11% identified as female; 1% identified as gender-queer or non-conforming; 7% preferred not to say; and 2% declared a different gender identity.
 * Well over half the survey participants who provided their age indicated that they were 35 years or over.
 * 14% of respondents indicated that they had participated in Wikimedia projects for 10 years; 13% indicated that they had participated one year or less. All other lengths of participation had fewer respondents than these two classes of users.
 * The most commonly experienced types of harassment among those who said they had experienced some form of harassment were, in descending order of prevalence,
 * Content vandalism: 85%
 * Trolling/flaming: 83%
 * Name calling: 79%
 * Discrimination: 74%
 * Stalking: 74%
 * Outing/doxxing: 67%
 * Threats of violence: 65%
 * Impersonation: 65%
 * Hacking: 63%
 * Revenge porn: 61%
 * Other: 57%
 * The most common type of harassment in the "other" category was "unjustified use of admin tools and processes, or threats thereof".
 * 53% of those who experienced harassment said the incidents were perpetrated by multiple people through multiple episodes.

The survey results have been discussed on both Jimmy Wales' talk page and on the survey's talk page on Meta. Volunteers have questioned some of the results and alleged design defects in the survey, and WMF staff have responded.

Luis Villa is leaving the Foundation
Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director Lila Tretikov announced on February 8 on the wikimedia-l mailing list that Luis Villa is leaving the WMF:

Knowledge engine grant
Lila Tretikov has released some background information on the knowledge engine grant on her user talk page in Meta.



Brief notes

 * New administrators: The Signpost welcomes the English Wikipedia's newest administrator, Peacemaker67.
 * Schedule for Metrics meetings changed: As advised by Lila Tretikov on the Wikimedia-l mailing list, Metrics meetings will from now on take place on the last Thursday of each month.
 * Hardcore pornographic movies in article space – yes or no? A discussion, originally sparked on the talk page of the Debbie Does Dallas article, is ongoing in several places about whether Wikipedia should or shouldn't embed out-of-copyright pornographic films in article space. The Debbie Does Dallas article has at times included the complete movie, enabling users to view it in the article itself; a small number of other articles like A Free Ride and Convent pornography similarly include embedded pornographic movies that have fallen out of copyright.