Wikipedia talk:PC2012

Help at the RfC
I would appreciate some input at WP:PC2012/RfC 1. I've worked on trying to condense the issues that have been discussed here into a single RfC with Yes-No Agree-Disagree type answers. So far there are 16 questions, which I think is a little on the high side. I was hoping that others could help out, fixing potentially problematic questions, getting rid of half-baked ideas, adding ideas that I missed, and helping me fix the many mistakes I've certainly made. There's a talk page now for the RfC where specific issues can be discussed, although I'm fine with discussing them here as well. (Whatever works best for people.) We're running out of time here, so I'd like to get this thing off the ground soon, perhaps in the next day or three, if possible. ~Adjwilley (talk) 00:07, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I'll be happy to help, I should catch up on copyediting today. I think what I'm going to suggest is that we start off with an RfC just on removing PC2 from the mix (and explaining why), because IMO that's where the holy-$%^&* problems are. The stuff you're working on could make a very nice second RfC I think. - Dank (push to talk) 15:56, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I was trying to cram everything into the one because I was worried about the fast-approaching deadlines. If you thing two would be better that's fine too. ~Adjwilley (talk) 17:19, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Happy to go with multiple steps if we can think of a good way to split it... but many of the questions are related so we may conclude that it is easier to ask them all at the same time.
 * Personally, I think issues with PC2 are something of a sideshow so if we get a lot of people's attention and just ask them that we will loose people's interest. Happy to have it as one of many questions though.
 * I have posted a comment at Wikipedia talk:PC2012/RfC 1.
 * Yaris678 (talk) 17:41, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Steven Walling and Maryana gave a presentation at Wikimania (starting at the 39:00 point) indicating that the one trait that characterizes Wikipedians more than any other is a desire for autonomy (we all knew that already I think, but data is always nice). There's no reason to believe that autonomy-loving Wikipedians will react well when their edits have to get the approval of reviewers before going live, particularly when other Wikipedians who happened to know admins don't need prior approval. Unlike full protection, which treats everyone the same (in theory, and often in practice), PC-2 openly discriminates against a wide class of valuable editors. I recommend the Wikimania video "Technology and Infrastructure II": starting at 17:30, Karyn (WMF) talks about her research on the English Wikipedians reaching the 1000-article-edits mark, of whom there are 5 to 6 per day. Many of them don't interact with the community at all; many some of them don't even have talk pages. Nevertheless, over 90% of their edits "stick". People who make good edits but have generally avoided interaction with the community in the past are not going to suddenly become more interested in interacting after they've been relegated to second-class status as editors; many will leave Wikipedia. But arguments over what effect this will have on new users largely miss the point, because it's not about them, it's about what PC-2 says about us. I generally expect nine-year-olds to know better than to march up to a group of friends and say, "You, you and you, stop talking! You're not in our club!" I don't think this behavior should be tolerated or rationalized, it should be condemned for what it is: horrible social skills. If PC-level-2 stays in the mix, then my guess is it will take everything else down with it, so let's get that off the table first. - Dank (push to talk) 18:38, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
 * P.S. There's another problem with PC-2 that's just as bad ... do I need to continue, or is the point clear already? - Dank (push to talk) 18:45, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
 * P.P.S. I'm aware that it's generally a bad idea in wiki-discussions to use strong language like "nine-year-olds ... know better" ... but I really think it would be helpful to imagine a nine-year-old acting the same way, and imagine how people are likely to react to the kid when he silences the kids he doesn't know, even if the kid believes that it's really important to have a high-level conversation and he thinks the newbies are dragging the conversation down. It's a question of social skills, or lack thereof. - Dank (push to talk) 19:39, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I'll keep the nine-year-old stuff out of the RfC though, that's a little strong :) - Dank (push to talk) 15:04, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Point taken, although I could also see putting this as the first question in the bigger RfC. If consensus is to do a little RfC first, it should be very easy to frame and we could start tomorrow if we wanted to I suspect. I could prepare it by moving the WP:PC2012/RfC 1 to WP:PC2012/RfC 2 and then pasting the section on PC/2 into the redirect. How does that sound to people? (Whatever we do, I feel like we should get moving on it.) ~Adjwilley (talk) 21:31, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Works for me. - Dank (push to talk) 21:54, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Dank, there seem to be diverging views on this. There are other editors who are saying that the most fundamental and important question is what the purpose of PC is. Is it just a vandalism tool, or is it more than that? See the comments by Risker above, as well as these recent comments by Rivertorch and Isaacl. ~Adjwilley (talk) 16:32, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
 * You've got the wrong diff there, Adjwilley. That's a diff of you editing an article's references. — Jeremy  v^_^v  Bori! 16:35, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Shoot. I hate it when that happens. I've fixed it now, hopefully. ~Adjwilley (talk) 16:45, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm working atm, could someone notify all 3 of them to have a look here? I'm not saying that PC-2 is a fundamental question, I'm saying that it's a toxic question, and we can expect some of the same problems as in previous discussions as long as it's on the table. If they're okay with doing the PC-2 RfC first, and hopefully the result will be quick and obvious, I'd be in favor of that. I'll add that second reason I mentioned above when I get home. - Dank (push to talk) 16:59, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I think deployment questions though are best decided with an understanding of the objectives that need to be satisfied. If pending changes level 2 doesn't help meet any of the objectives, then it will be a no-brainer to drop it. But first an agreement on what the objectives are for the initial rollout is needed (and hopefully supporters of pending changes are willing to compromise on a common set of objectives, rather than hold out for their entire preferred list; getting an initial deployment underway will help provide more data to figure out the most effective deployment approach). isaacl (talk)

Hm. You know, the worst result would be that traditional supporters and opposers start talking past each other, as always, and keep doing it for two months with no result. I wonder if it would be possible to divide the RfC into two tracks, and ask people on their honor to participate in one or the other but not both in order to formulate what's going to be voted on, then everyone gets together at the end for a straight, no-discussion vote on whatever both sides came up with? People who are more inclined to support might want to focus on questions like: if you previously voted for or expressed an opinion in favor of RfC, what uses did you have in mind for Pending Changes? Also, did you intend this to be applied to pages that we apply protection to now, or to all pages with certain kinds of problems (what kind?), or to all pages in some category (such as, all BLP pages)? People more inclined to oppose might be more interested in the PC-2 question. I don't recall that we've ever done this before specifically to try to appeal to both sides of a question at the same time while reducing the cross-talk, and I don't know if it's a good idea ... I only know that if the RfC is a shouting match, it will be a waste of everyone's time, so we want to get people who have basically the same viewpoint working together on some important problem(s). - Dank (push to talk) 19:10, 30 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I don't see any problem with running multiple RFCs at a time (although I might not start them both in the same week), but I don't think it would be helpful to make people pick only one. That just results in people participating where their passion, and therefore often where their most extreme views, are.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:27, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, you're right, except that I think the point is to run them both at the same time. I'll keep working on the PC-2 one. - Dank (push to talk) 19:39, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Okay, I see PC2012/RfC 1 has a section on PC-2. I'm proposing we remove that section, and instead handle that in a separate RFC. The reason for breaking the RfC into two pieces is that we know that people inclined to oppose are skeptical of the process, and are likely to sit out any RfC that seems to represent Pending Changes in a positive light. But even if you're a staunch supporter, it's in your interest to try to get opposers involved now, because they're certainly going to be involved after Pending Changes goes live; a successful RfC now will probably reduce drama later on. Objections? - Dank (push to talk) 18:34, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
 * No objections, proceeding. - Dank (push to talk) 13:21, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * As you seem pretty set on having a separate RFC only for pending changes level 2, my suggestion is to get it done quickly: start it ASAP and have about one or two weeks for responses. isaacl (talk) 15:21, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Will do. Any objections to taking RfC #1 live as well? It's been up for a while with no new suggestions. - Dank (push to talk) 16:43, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Wait... you're thinking of taking them both live at the same time? ~Adjwilley (talk) 17:03, 3 September 2012 (UTC) I ask because if you want them to run simultaneously, I think it would be less confusing and more convenient for participants to just merge them into the same RfC. Besides, many of the other questions in RfC 1 are interdependent with the PC-2 question, so having it in a different place isn't going to help us much. I say either run the PC-2 RfC first, close it, and modify the second RfC to reflect its outcome, or run everything in the same big RfC with the PC-2 question being the first question. ~Adjwilley (talk) 17:21, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm fine with that; we'll just do the PC/2 one, and run it for a week, and explain that it's running for just a week because we need information from this RfC to help us know what to say in the next one, which is bigger and a lot more complicated. Actually ... what we also need is participants to help us work on it, and the first RfC will attract participants. I'll move RfC 1 to RfC 2 and launch RfC 1 on PC/2 (that's a mouthful). - Dank (push to talk) 17:25, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * As you know, I'm not a fan of your proposed RFC leading off, but if it's faster to go ahead and get it done than reach an agreement on something else, I'm all for just doing it and clearing the way to determine the objectives for the pending changes deployment. A quick, short poll on its own seems reasonable. isaacl (talk) 17:40, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't see what choice we have. The main RfC you're working on is pretty complicated, so it will go better if we can get input from more people before going live. Asking for participation hasn't worked so far, so the best way to generate interest will probably be a short and relatively straightforward RfC. I haven't been able to detect any significant support for PC/2 for months, so this seems as close to a noncontroversial way to get started as I can find. - Dank (push to talk) 17:49, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I still think it's putting the cart before the horse. The basic question remains What is the extent of the purpose of PC (or something like that). The answer to that should provide some indication as to what forms of PC are acceptable, as well as how they are to be used. But I'll shut up now, at the risk of straying into dead horse country. Rivertorch (talk) 18:08, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Can you hold your dead horses for a week? It's just a few more days. - Dank (push to talk) 18:15, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I've got a draft notice up for tomorrow morning's Signpost, at WP:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-09-03/News and notes. (There's a short discussion at the Newsroom, WP:SIGN/N.) - Dank (push to talk) 18:21, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

WT:PC2012/RfC 2
Just a pointer. - Dank (push to talk) 20:02, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
 * For anybody who's not watching the /RfC 2 page, we're pretty close to getting it off the ground. ~Adjwilley (talk) 19:28, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Pages that need to be updated when PC is re-enabled

 * - modify all mentions of PC
 * - change proposal to policy, among others
 * - remove the warning about the 2011 RFC
 * - remove the warning about the 2011 RFC

Just starting a list of pages that need to be modified once PC is re-enabled. Zzyzx11 (talk) 18:04, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Status
Just a passing comment that PC has been "legal" for about 30 hours as of this comment, and only ten articles (not counting the old test pages) are listed at Special:StablePages as being protected under it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:55, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Over 30 now. It'll be a slower process than last time we tried it as it's going via RPP. I've put 2 on today already. Ged  UK  13:23, 3 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Did we decide that PC must go through RPP? I don't remember that.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:37, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
 * No, I don't think so, but I would expect that's where most would end up. Ged  UK  12:27, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

list of discussions
I see there has been some back-and-forth on this. I think we should keep the list, maybe even move it to a more prominent location such as the main PC page. I know this will sound crazy to those of us that have been paying attention to this issue, but even now there are users who think that PC was "killed forever" two years ago. Just after it went back into service a user was posting at the admin noticeboard saying it had been kept alive through sneaky stealth tactics. Keeping a comprehensive record of the numerous, very public, totally transparent discussion that led to this point is a simple way of dispelling the myth that the community utterly rejected PC at some point and it was snuck back in. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:49, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Agreed. - Dank (push to talk) 18:55, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Sure. A link to PC2012 on the main PC page would probably suffice. Rivertorch (talk) 19:44, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I massively agree that that we need to maintain the list of community wider discussions. However, I don't think this is the page to do it.  There are two reasons:
 * This page is about the discussions which followed the 2012 decision to use PC.
 * There are several more discussions that need to be linked to.
 * We don't want this page taken up by a list of previous discussions. Similarly, if someone wants to see all the discussions, the rest of this page may seem like an odd context in which to find it.
 * How about creating a new page called something like List of discussions related to the Pending-Changes feature?
 * Yaris678 (talk) 09:18, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
 * The Pending changes page is a natural location to place these links, as it would be the first place people would look for this information. A "Timeline" or "History" section that described key events with links to the appropriate discussions would be convenient. isaacl (talk) 15:16, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree. Let's stick it there.  That is the natural home.  Let's start there.  If the section gets too big we can move it to a separate page.  It's a bit like Summary style.  Yaris678 (talk) 17:41, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Fine with me—as long as it's somewhere. Rivertorch (talk) 18:31, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Done. Yaris678 (talk) 11:24, 5 December 2012 (UTC)