Steven (WMF)

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Praise versus negative templates

Latest comment: 13 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Hi Steven,

I uploaded a new version of your graph that should fix the y-axis to actually show the percentages and not the fractions. Hope you don't mind, but feel free to revert if it is an issue. Best regards, --Dami (talk) 21:44, 3 May 2011 (UTC)Reply

Global bans and why this proposal is wrong

Latest comment: 12 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

Hi Steven,

I'd like to share with you my own experience of being banned.

You write "A global ban reflects a broad and clear community consensus." Before we would talk about "community consensus" please let's talk about the community itself and what it means. English wikipedia community is hundred of thousands of editors. From these hundred of thousands very few are voting in ban discussions. The ones that do are very special members of community who in most cases should not be allowed to govern Wikipedia and to vote in ban discussions.

I was community banned on English Wikipedia. Shall we see what kind of "community" voted to ban me:

My ban was proposed by en:User Jehochman. I am not sure what to make of that admin, but I tend to believe that besides being a witch-hunter he's an idiot. Here's why: Once he reverted my post to his talk with an edit summary: "per house rules, dull and rude comments are not allowed". If you or somebody else please would tell me where I was rude in my comment I will publicly apologize to Jehochman. Another prove of idiocy: please see the user talk page at meta. See the category "humor"? What is so humorous about this talk page? Surprisingly or not, but when the user is called "an idiot" he still does not get it was said about him. :-)
en:User Demiurge1000, the first one to support my ban used against me dirty lies it got from a criminal who hacked my email account. Should we call Demiurge1000 "a criminal's promoter" and "a criminal's sympathizer" ?
en:User Beeblebrox demonstrated more that once that it is incapable of making intelligent decisions because of its instability. Here are just a few examples: edit summary: "what an asshole";edit summary: "the lunatics are running the asylum";edit summary: "fuck this site and the abusive cowards that for the most part administrate it.";"go away now you abusive disgrace of an admin";an outburst on English wikipedia. Many more examples could be provided by request. Also this user seem to have difficulties in reading and understanding English: Here's the message the user posted to my talk some time ago: "Holy shit, did you really just say that?!?! Go away. I can't think of anything else to say in the face of such blatant racism, go away and don't come back. "? It took a few hours for the user to realize that he read a word wrongly and issue an apology. More examples of having difficulties with English could be provided by request. Should we call user Beeblebrox "unstable admin?"
en:user:Night Ranger loves to vote in ban discussions and to add "banned user template" to user pages of the users who are not yet banned. Night Ranger added to its user page an image of "Human penis and scrotum" when it was told to stop adding "ban user" templates to user pages. I'll also recommend to take a look at deleted revision of 22:35, 16 March 2012‎. The user might have left wikipedia with a nice goodbye message D: "fuck you all". Should we call Night Ranger "a sicko"? It might be a wrong word, but because of my limited English I cannot come up with a better one. I'd agree if you are to change it.
en:user:Tarc harasses me and lies about me on and off wiki every time it sees my name [1]. Another example: "I find it highly amusing that the fuckwit of the hour monitors this thread and used it to get Rd232 to turn her talk page access back on. What did you do Mila, promise him a blowjob someday?" Should we call tarc "a psychotic, obsessed sadist"? If you know a better description for somebody who said this without provocation, I am open for your suggestions, and I do have quite a few more samples of tarc's "vocabulary".
User:Sandstein an abusive, bully admin whose performance was characterized by a fellow admin like this "The way you dish out blocks is worse than any admin I've ever seen, but you cannot or will not accept that there is a problem. You lack the judgement, and the thickness of skin, to do the job properly; you lack the compassion, humanity and humility to admit it when you fuck up (and we all fuck up Sandstein, even you); and you lack the perspective to be imposing blocks.". Besides everything else Sandstein harasses and discriminates against mentally sick wikipedians "Also, and I mean absolutely no disrespect by that, the idea of an administrator of whom we know that they are suffering from psychiatric disorders does not sit well with me. Admins can do substantial damage to the project if they want to, and I just don't feel we should take the risk in this case." One more: "Sorry, but your userpage says that you have Schizotypal personality disorder, which according to its Wikipedia article may manifest as "inappropriate or constricted affect (the individual appears cold and aloof); behaviour or appearance that is odd, eccentric, or peculiar; poor rapport with others and a tendency to social withdrawal" and so forth. These are not characteristics that administrators should exhibit, and I'd rather not run the risk that they may appear in the future even if they have not done so far." (In the last situation the user asked Sandstein to reconsider the oppose reason "I respectfully ask that you reconsider the reasons for your opposing."), but Sandstein has never bothered to respond? BTW in his vote supporting my ban Sandstein admitted that he voted to support it because he had a personal disagreement with me. Should we call Sandstein "an involved bully"?

OK, I believe I provided enough examples, but if you'd like me to I could go on.

So I was community banned by an idiot, a sicko, an involved bully, a psychotic obsessed liar, a criminal's promoter and an unstable admin. Besides that there were liars,bullies, an admin who misused his check users tools, involved users and so on. I do have diffs to confirm every word I said.

You may ask why there were not enough other normal editors to oppose my ban. It is because normal editors do not usually watch drama boards, and most of hundred of thousands of normal editors are busy adding content and simply do not care.

Another point to make: Why was I banned at all? I mean I was indefinitely re-blocked by arbcom. Why to ban an indefinitely blocked editor? Well, here's a story: In one of his post user Jehochman called me "a banned user" and I said that I was blocked, but not banned. As soon as Jehochman heard it, he started a ban discussion (how sick it is!) , and you're saying bans are not used to punish? Then what they are used for?

Another point to make: I probably made more content contributions to WMF projects than all users who voted to ban me combined.

Later one in the global ban policy you state: "The user has been carefully informed about appropriate participation in the projects and has had fair opportunity to rectify any problems. These projects must have demonstrated a good faith attempt to explain acceptable practices and behaviors that are consistent with their mission and scope. This criterion is to show users reasonably know what is expected, have had ample opportunity to appropriately address concerns, and chose not to participate appropriately in projects."

Shall we go back to my example?

At the moment I was re-blocked by arbcom I was under a self-requested block for 6 months! I was re-blocked in violation of each and every blocking policy, and during a closed tribunal I knew nothing about and was not allowed to participate at all. Not a single diff of an alleged harassment was provided anywhere. A few days later I was community banned. Not only I was not able to participate in the discussion, but even my talk page access was removed. Where were my "opportunities to appropriately address concerns"?

Now about "harassment" itself. I was re-blocked by arbcom and then community banned for RFC I submitted on Meta. In this RFC I used some strong language, mostly because English is not my first language, but there was no harassment, not at all. That's why when I begged arbcom to provide a single diff of "harassment" they were unable to do it. If they did, and I would have understood why it was "harassment" I of course would have removed it and apologized.

Steven before you adopt "global ban policy" you, I mean WMF, should fix or better remove banning policy from English wikipedia. Blocking should be enough. Community bans as they are executed now resemble "Two Minutes Hate" described in 1984 by George Orwell: "The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but, on the contrary, that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretence was always unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge-hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one's will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic.

Regards.--Mbz1 (talk) 01:25, 30 June 2012 (UTC)Reply

I'm sorry, but it sounds like your problems are really with community decision making and trust in its judgement, which is not something I can solve for you as a Foundation employee. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 02:04, 30 June 2012 (UTC)Reply

Steven, first of all my post at your page was addressed not only to you as to WMF employee, but also to you as to Wikipedia user and even more to you as a person.

But let's talk about WMF. I stated (and provided evidences) I was community banned by involved bullies, liars, haters with the only purpose to punish and to bully me. Aren't you as WMF employee should look at my evidences? Wikipedia is a charitable, tax-exempt site. Is bullying by anonymous users should be allowed at the sites that belong to WMF?

Or maybe you as WMF employee who is involved in writing Terms of Use (or simply as a normal person) will be able to explain to me what is the purpose to ban already blocked editors, what is the purpose to keep banned user list in a public view? I see it as the only purpose - bullying, and in many situations, including my own, as a violation of BLP. --Mbz1 (talk) 02:26, 30 June 2012 (UTC)Reply

File tagging File:Summer of Research Presentation, Ian.jpg

Latest comment: 12 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

العربية ∙ беларуская ∙ беларуская (тарашкевіца) ∙ ပအိုဝ်ႏဘာႏသာႏ ∙ বাংলা ∙ català ∙ čeština ∙ dansk ∙ Deutsch ∙ Deutsch (Sie-Form) ∙ Ελληνικά ∙ English ∙ español ∙ euskara ∙ فارسی ∙ suomi ∙ français ∙ galego ∙ עברית ∙ hrvatski ∙ magyar ∙ հայերեն ∙ italiano ∙ 日本語 ∙ ಕನ್ನಡ ∙ 한국어 ∙ lietuvių ∙ latviešu ∙ македонски ∙ മലയാളം ∙ मराठी ∙ မြန်မာဘာသာ ∙ norsk bokmål ∙ Plattdüütsch ∙ Nederlands ∙ norsk ∙ polski ∙ português ∙ română ∙ русский ∙ sicilianu ∙ slovenčina ∙ slovenščina ∙ српски / srpski ∙ svenska ∙ ไทย ∙ Türkçe ∙ українська ∙ اردو ∙ Tiếng Việt ∙ 中文（简体） ∙ 中文（繁體） ∙ +/−

This media may be deleted.

Thanks for uploading File:Summer of Research Presentation, Ian.jpg. This media is missing permission information. A source is given, but there is no proof that the author or copyright holder agreed to license the file under the given license. Please provide a link to an appropriate webpage with license information, or ask the author or copyright holder to send an email with copy of a written permission to VRT (permissions-commons@wikimedia.org). You may still be required to go through this procedure even if you are the author yourself; please see Commons:But it's my own work! for more details. After you emailed permission, you may replace the {{No permission since}} tag with {{subst:PP}} on file description page. Alternatively, you may click on "Challenge speedy deletion" below the tag if you wish to provide an argument why evidence of permission is not necessary in this case.

Please see this page for more information on how to confirm permission, or if you would like to understand why we ask for permission when uploading work that is not your own, or work which has been previously published (regardless of whether it is your own).

Warning: unless the permission information is given, the file may be deleted after seven days. Thank you.

Saibo (Δ ∇) 00:20, 2 July 2012 (UTC)Reply

Please do not remove problem tags

Latest comment: 12 years ago7 comments2 people in discussion

čeština ∙ Deutsch ∙ English ∙ español ∙ français ∙ italiano ∙ magyar ∙ Nederlands ∙ norsk bokmål ∙ norsk ∙ Plattdüütsch ∙ polski ∙ português ∙ português do Brasil ∙ sicilianu ∙ svenska ∙ suomi ∙ македонски ∙ русский ∙ українська ∙ 日本語 ∙ עברית ∙ +/−

Hi! It has come to my attention that you have removed a warning which says that a file doesn't have enough information about the source or license conditions. Nevertheless, it seems to me that this information is still missing and I have restored the tag. You may either add the required information or, if you think that required information is already given, put the image up for a deletion request so that it won't automatically be deleted. Thank you.

here: File:Jay Walsh May 2008.JPG, File:Erica Ortega May 2008.JPG, File:Summer of Research Presentation, Ian.jpg, File:India Program Team.jpg --Saibo (Δ ∇) 01:03, 2 July 2012 (UTC)Reply

Don't be daft. It's been said on Commons before that all work done during the course of a job by Foundation staff or contractors is CC-BY-SA 3.0 as a matter of default.
Don't template the regulars. It's childish.

Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 01:05, 2 July 2012 (UTC)Reply

You behave like a non-regular (poorly licensed files). Get your stuff right (think of a re-user who does not know who is employed at WMF and which contract he has sigend). Stop violating Commons' rules. Thanks. --Saibo (Δ ∇) 01:07, 2 July 2012 (UTC)Reply

We're not just talking about my files here, we're talking about work done by many WMF staff/contractors. The licensing is completely obvious and does not require clarification, and your tagging is clearly malicious. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 01:08, 2 July 2012 (UTC)Reply

Right, many WMF guys'n'girls are newbies. --Saibo (Δ ∇) 01:12, 2 July 2012 (UTC)Reply

The matter is a moot point. It doesn't matter if they're newbies or not, because it's not debated that WMF work is CC across the board. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 01:17, 2 July 2012 (UTC)Reply

Well, if you are intentionally uploading works without documented permission I will delete it directly - your choice. ;-) No, WMF is not GOD in case you believe that. --Saibo (Δ ∇) 01:20, 2 July 2012 (UTC)Reply

File:Screen Shot 2012-06-21 of LastModified experimental feature.png

Latest comment: 12 years ago2 comments1 person in discussion

Pay attention to licensing

Wikimedia Commons only accepts free content: images and other media files that can be used by anyone, for any purpose.

File:Screen Shot 2012-06-21 of LastModified experimental feature.png seems to be free (or it would be proposed for deletion), but it was identified as having a wrong license. Usually, it is because a public domain image is tagged with a free license, or because the stated source or other information is not sufficient to prove the selected tag is correct. Please verify that you applied the correct license tag for this file.

If you believe this file has the correct license, please explain why on the file discussion page.

العربية ∙ Deutsch ∙ English ∙ español ∙ français ∙ 日本語 ∙ മലയാളം ∙ polski ∙ português ∙ slovenščina ∙ svenska ∙ Tiếng Việt ∙ 简体中文 ∙ 繁體中文 ∙ +/−

The reason given by the user who added this tag is: Steven Walling is not the author (screenshotting is not a totally non-creative work) and Wikimedia Foundation is not the source...

Saibo (Δ ∇) 01:08, 2 July 2012 (UTC)Reply

note. Either this is not copyright eligible or the authors are somebody elses - but NOT you (if you claim to have a copyright by taking a screeenshot then your "work" is a DW which also leads to deltion). Don't remove warnings. Cheers --Saibo (Δ ∇) 01:16, 2 July 2012 (UTC)Reply

Copyright status: File:ACUX-Onboarding-Step1.png

Latest comment: 11 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

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This media may be deleted.

Thanks for uploading File:ACUX-Onboarding-Step1.png. I notice that the file page either doesn't contain enough information about the license or it contains contradictory information about the license, so the copyright status is unclear.

If you created this file yourself, then you must provide a valid copyright tag. For example, you can tag it with {{self|GFDL|cc-by-sa-all}} to release it under the multi-license GFDL plus Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike All-version license or you can tag it with {{PD-self}} to release it into the public domain. (See Commons:Copyright tags for the full list of license tags that you can use.)

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Ju Ta 20:06, 16 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

MediaWiki:Createacct-imgcaptcha-help

Latest comment: 11 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Nice to see that you created the English version but all other versions still link to the non-existent page Commons:Request an account and Special:WhatLinksHere/Commons:Request an account did not list the links (IMHO another bug). A German user who was unable to read the English-sounding captcha (the bug concerning captcha localization is still not resolved) just tried to create this page and got blocked by AbuseFilter (which disallows creating pages by IPs). Another user used the talk page. Can you fix this? Or do you suggest creating such a page? +3 Bugs for today. Thank you. -- Rillke^(q?) 13:19, 6 June 2013 (UTC)Reply

These strings were relocated to Extension:WikimediaMessages and were set as blank in core, since they're obviously quite Wikimedia specific. I'm happy to go through and fix the links for the other language options given on Commons. I'll try to get to it soon. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 00:07, 11 June 2013 (UTC)Reply

Special:UserLogin/signup form validation

Latest comment: 11 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion

Hi Steven, is it possible for admins to set the HTML5 pattern attribute for the user name? Also, this is something MediaWiki possibly would like to do as #<>|[] is generally forbidden in titles. The required attribute may be additionally set. -- Rillke^(q?) 12:53, 13 June 2013 (UTC)Reply

Yeah we could potentially do that. Let me see what the developers on my team think. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 19:34, 14 June 2013 (UTC)Reply

The big issue is inconsistent browser handling of HTML5 form validation. Some browsers silently refuse to submit when form validation fails without explaining why; others have incomplete localization of their UI for field validation. So MediaWiki code currently blacklists all form validation attributes, including pattern and required (see bug 23769). If MediaWiki implements client-side form validation it would perform the validation itself, at which point having a message enumerating invalid characters (which admins could override) is a great idea! A general problem with rejecting username on the client is keeping it in sync with the server's decision making: usernames are restricted by valid page title checks, per-wiki username rules such as maximum length, and then additional checks by extensions including AntiSpoof and TitleBlacklist. It makes it difficult to summarize criteria for a valid username in wiki guidelines, let alone program them :-) -- S Page (WMF) (talk) 20:02, 14 June 2013 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for the extensive reply. It's good to know about this webkit-flaw. I do not even know whether these old browsers allowed using CSS to style :invalid input fields. The chromium developer suggested a workaround that sounds attainable, although I agree that the advantages possibly do not justify the effort: Handle 'invalid' event and show validation messages by MediaWiki code. -- Rillke^(q?) 21:52, 14 June 2013 (UTC)Reply

Videos

Latest comment: 11 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion

Hi Steven,
uploading videos is a pain in the ass for lots of contributors because the recoding devices usually use file formats that are not accepted on Wikimedia projects. So the user has to convert the video for himself, which can be complicated, time consuming and sometimes results in sub-optimal video quality. It would be better, more convenient and more user-friendly if I could just upload any file and the conversion is done on the server. Are you aware of any WMF plans that this will happen? --Isderion (talk) 19:41, 1 July 2013 (UTC)Reply

Yes we are working on supporting patented / royalty bearing formats, but the legal process has taken some time. Mdale (talk)

Thank you for the answer. Is there a page where I can get more information about this project (e.g. timeframe). And is it about converting patented / royalty bearing formats to free formats or fully support the upload and use of such formats (e.g. uploading and using *.avi-files)? --Isderion (talk) 22:55, 11 July 2013 (UTC)Reply

I do not think AVI files make sense. However mp4 files could be played on mobile devices ( bugzilla:39867). Also I am not aware if there is a bug report for "Server-side transcode of uploaded video files"; maybe I should file a new one. --McZusatz (talk) 07:53, 14 July 2013 (UTC)Reply

Found bugzilla:43150 just now. --McZusatz (talk) 08:11, 14 July 2013 (UTC)Reply

Notification about possible deletion

Latest comment: 8 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Some contents have been listed at Commons:Deletion requests so that the community can discuss whether they should be kept or not. We would appreciate it if you could go to voice your opinion about this at their entry.

If you created these pages, please note that the fact that they have been proposed for deletion does not necessarily mean that we do not value your kind contribution. It simply means that one person believes that there is some specific problem with them, such as a copyright issue. Please see Commons:But it's my own work! for a guide on how to address these issues.

Please remember to respond to and – if appropriate – contradict the arguments supporting deletion. Arguments which focus on the nominator will not affect the result of the nomination. Thank you!

Afrikaans ∙ العربية ∙ беларуская ∙ беларуская (тарашкевіца) ∙ български ∙ ပအိုဝ်ႏဘာႏသာႏ ∙ বাংলা ∙ bosanski ∙ català ∙ čeština ∙ dansk ∙ Deutsch ∙ Deutsch (Sie-Form) ∙ Zazaki ∙ ދިވެހިބަސް ∙ Ελληνικά ∙ English ∙ Esperanto ∙ español ∙ eesti ∙ فارسی ∙ suomi ∙ français ∙ galego ∙ עברית ∙ hrvatski ∙ magyar ∙ հայերեն ∙ Bahasa Indonesia ∙ íslenska ∙ italiano ∙ 日本語 ∙ 한국어 ∙ 조선말 ∙ македонски ∙ മലയാളം ∙ Bahasa Melayu ∙ မြန်မာဘာသာ ∙ norsk bokmål ∙ Plattdüütsch ∙ Nederlands ∙ norsk nynorsk ∙ norsk ∙ occitan ∙ polski ∙ پښتو ∙ português ∙ português do Brasil ∙ română ∙ русский ∙ sicilianu ∙ slovenčina ∙ slovenščina ∙ shqip ∙ српски / srpski ∙ svenska ∙ ไทย ∙ Türkçe ∙ українська ∙ Tiếng Việt ∙ 中文 ∙ 中文（简体） ∙ 中文（繁體） ∙ +/−

Affected:

File:Sign-up-and-save mockup.png

And also:

Yours sincerely, BethNaught (talk) 20:25, 23 May 2016 (UTC)Reply

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