Can any of the editors who interacted with the WMF team give their views on what the process was like? WMF teams like this are much closer to content, which always sets antenna wigging - this article is well written and not problematic, but always good to get more viewpoints Nosebagbear ( talk) 11:50, 28 December 2020 (UTC)
I've been meaning to comment here for awhile, but have been enjoying the conversation also. @ Nosebagbear, Bilorv, and Valereee: I think its important to realize that if we're protecting against, say Russia, Chinese, or even Vatican City (just theoretical examples) intelligence forces trying to disrupt Wikipedia - then there are things that can't be completely transparent. That said I do think that the WMF has been pretty open about what they are doing and trying to do. A couple examples from *before* the election involve talking to (non-Signpost) reporters for these two stories (which we reported in in "In the media" last month.
vox/recode and cnet from those I concluded that the WMF worked with ArbCom and likely checkusers and other bureaucrats, though it didn't spell that out in any detail. Presumably WMF staffers, including the "security team", and perhaps some "outsiders" were also part of the team. How the other participants were chosen - I have no idea. And let me emphasize that that is my reading of off-Wiki articles.
Somebody - who will not be mentioned - emailed me asking whether we factcheck our articles. Yes we do, but there are different levels of factchecking. All articles - even opinion articles of people reporting on their own opinions - are read and have to pass the smell test. Statements presented as facts are checked if they don't look right, but not every statement of fact is tracked down in detail. If you see an article with footnotes or extensive wiki-links, we do check those (often we ask for this documentation on specific facts). Emails are saved so that we can send them to ArbCom if somebody says "I never said that" and takes us to ArbCom. All in all, we're not The New Yorker but I'm comfortable with our level of factchecking. If I'm not comfortable we'll kill the story or just wait until I am comfortable.
Factchecking the WMF is a bit different, however. Much of what they state - e.g. the number of unique visitors in a month - they are the ultimate authority on. Like other publications we'll accept their word as fact on these type of things. Other statements we can check out to some extent, and I believe we can do that better, as experienced Wikipedians, than even the large mainstream newspapers can. Other statements about the inner workings of the WMF, we report on the basis that while it might be their opinion, that will be obvious in context, and nobody else is likely to have better facts available. So like I said - there are different level of factchecking.
Finally to @ Llywrch:'s question on the 56,000 volunteer editors monitoring the 2,000 election-related pages. That did catch my eye on first reading - it seems way too high - somebody would have reported something to us if 56,000 active Wikipedians had been asked to do this. My interpretation after thinking a bit was that they probably meant the total number of page watchers on those 2,000 articles, that's an average of 28 people per article having it on their watchlist. That's very possible, even a bit low. But it's not 56,000 individual editors watching the articles. I should have asked Ryan for clarification. I'll ping @ RMerkley (WMF): to see if he has anything to add. Smallbones( smalltalk) 02:07, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
Can any of the editors who interacted with the WMF team give their views on what the process was like? WMF teams like this are much closer to content, which always sets antenna wigging - this article is well written and not problematic, but always good to get more viewpoints Nosebagbear ( talk) 11:50, 28 December 2020 (UTC)
I've been meaning to comment here for awhile, but have been enjoying the conversation also. @ Nosebagbear, Bilorv, and Valereee: I think its important to realize that if we're protecting against, say Russia, Chinese, or even Vatican City (just theoretical examples) intelligence forces trying to disrupt Wikipedia - then there are things that can't be completely transparent. That said I do think that the WMF has been pretty open about what they are doing and trying to do. A couple examples from *before* the election involve talking to (non-Signpost) reporters for these two stories (which we reported in in "In the media" last month.
vox/recode and cnet from those I concluded that the WMF worked with ArbCom and likely checkusers and other bureaucrats, though it didn't spell that out in any detail. Presumably WMF staffers, including the "security team", and perhaps some "outsiders" were also part of the team. How the other participants were chosen - I have no idea. And let me emphasize that that is my reading of off-Wiki articles.
Somebody - who will not be mentioned - emailed me asking whether we factcheck our articles. Yes we do, but there are different levels of factchecking. All articles - even opinion articles of people reporting on their own opinions - are read and have to pass the smell test. Statements presented as facts are checked if they don't look right, but not every statement of fact is tracked down in detail. If you see an article with footnotes or extensive wiki-links, we do check those (often we ask for this documentation on specific facts). Emails are saved so that we can send them to ArbCom if somebody says "I never said that" and takes us to ArbCom. All in all, we're not The New Yorker but I'm comfortable with our level of factchecking. If I'm not comfortable we'll kill the story or just wait until I am comfortable.
Factchecking the WMF is a bit different, however. Much of what they state - e.g. the number of unique visitors in a month - they are the ultimate authority on. Like other publications we'll accept their word as fact on these type of things. Other statements we can check out to some extent, and I believe we can do that better, as experienced Wikipedians, than even the large mainstream newspapers can. Other statements about the inner workings of the WMF, we report on the basis that while it might be their opinion, that will be obvious in context, and nobody else is likely to have better facts available. So like I said - there are different level of factchecking.
Finally to @ Llywrch:'s question on the 56,000 volunteer editors monitoring the 2,000 election-related pages. That did catch my eye on first reading - it seems way too high - somebody would have reported something to us if 56,000 active Wikipedians had been asked to do this. My interpretation after thinking a bit was that they probably meant the total number of page watchers on those 2,000 articles, that's an average of 28 people per article having it on their watchlist. That's very possible, even a bit low. But it's not 56,000 individual editors watching the articles. I should have asked Ryan for clarification. I'll ping @ RMerkley (WMF): to see if he has anything to add. Smallbones( smalltalk) 02:07, 30 December 2020 (UTC)