Commons:Village pump/Proposals/Archive/2019/04

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Upgrade Commons:Staying mellow from Essay to Guideline

Commons:Staying mellow has been here over 11 years and has been translated into 14 different languages. I think it is mature enough to be a Guideline.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 03:50, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

!Votes (mellow)

  •  Support as proposer.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 03:50, 2 April 2019 (UTC)
  •  Oppose Because it is an essay and because it is not a civility policy, which is what the proposer wants. Guidelines are written quite differently. -- Colin (talk) 07:39, 2 April 2019 (UTC)
  •  Oppose per Colin. Hastily turning this into a guideline is the opposite of mellow, imho. It is good as an essay, but as a guideline it needs some work first. --El Grafo (talk) 08:58, 2 April 2019 (UTC)
  •  Support Good idea, thanks for the proposal. Making this a policy might help take proper and timely action for our most prolific trolls, who have become expert at gaming the system, like writing massive walls of text, or persistant hounding to make this project a hostile environment. --Fæ (talk) 19:51, 3 April 2019 (UTC)
  •  Weak oppose Essay is good, but would need rework as a civility guideline as Colin says. Also, a personal observation, Commons is hardly mellow in how some interpret Commons scope and/or how mountains get made of molehills. Abzeronow (talk) 18:42, 2 April 2019 (UTC)
  •  Support Quite needed. --Yann (talk) 19:33, 2 April 2019 (UTC)
  •  Support Why did I not know about this page? This is a really nice text. --GPSLeo (talk) 09:28, 3 April 2019 (UTC)
  •  Weak oppose Can't quite decide. It's a rather good essay (I'd suggest to expand it a bit, see discussion section), but declaring it a policy might indeed be problematic (see Colin's questions). --Gestumblindi (talk) 20:28, 3 April 2019 (UTC)
  •  Weak oppose I wrote the original version of this, way back when... I'm not sure that it is in a form that would make it a good guideline as is. Certainly a guideline could be drafted using the ideas it has, but that's a different proposal than just promoting it. I confess the egobo of it getting promoted is attractive though! ++Lar: t/c 22:22, 3 April 2019 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure what it would mean to make this into a policy, when it contains things such as "Kick back and enjoy some of the awesome work your fellow contributors have already done". I suspect it may be more effective as an essay to help read into Commons' community culture, useful to interpret existing policies. If there is a need to indicate that this essay expresses thoughts shared by the community at large, maybe there are other ways to do so? Nemo 09:44, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
  •  Strongly Oppose: If this proposal goes through, User Problems will be swamped with trivial complaints over innocuous remarks; ie a massive waste of the project's time and resources. We have more important matters to consider than petty insults and juvenile slights. AshFriday (talk) 08:26, 20 April 2019 (UTC)
  •  Weak oppose. I have nothing against the essay itself, but am afraid of template-speaking priests of Order of the Melon. I don’t trust these guys, and let’m take my vote as a personal offence to their pervasive impersonal shit like {{subst:test2}}. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 08:54, 20 April 2019 (UTC)
    @Incnis Mrsi: What is this "Order of the Melon"?   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 12:20, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Discussion (mellow)

People read the words COM:MELLOW and make assumptions. A bit like how people read WP:NOTCENSORED and assume it is a licence to offend. People think they can cite COM:MELLOW at someone who is angry, upset and kicking up a fuss. And somehow they will read this and become calm and rational and forgiving. But it isn't about that. Sure, it would be great if nobody got upset with someone else, but we are human. This is an essay about making a personal decision to try to be more understanding and patient with others. To try to be reasonable when others are not. To work towards consensus (which, by the way, is not "make a proposal and open a vote"). People should read this and consider applying it to their own behaviour; not read it and demand things of others' behaviour. That's why it should stay an essay. Essays are not failed or proto-guidelines. -- Colin (talk) 07:39, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

It is worth comparing with Wikipedia:Civility, the policy on Wikipedia. While they share some features such as the importance of behaving in certain ways, and a small selection of dos and donts, there is much that is missing if this were to be a guideline or policy. The Wikipedia guideline has information on how to identify incivility, the various processes, steps and forums for dealing with it and ultimately when to block people for it. Repeatedly the guideline says "Editors are expected to": it's audience is the community, not the individual reader. I'm not opposed to Commons having a Civility guideline or policy if the community wants it. But MELLOW is not that guideline. Taking someone to AN/U to get them blocked or censured is not a mellow thing to do, so doing that and citing this essay is just deeply ironic. Of course, it may be necessary or desirable to take someone to AN/U at times. Some of the best and most quoted advice/wisdom pages are essays. -- Colin (talk) 10:07, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Maybe expand it a bit regarding the Commons-specific language issues? It's mentioned in the beginning, but I think that even more conflicts here than in English-language Wikipedia stem from not understanding each other quite fully. Although we're using English as a "lingua franca" here, many of us (myself included) don't speak it as a native language. Together with cultural differences, this can lead to statements not being perceived as intended. One might try to just make a factual statement that others read as blunt or even uncivil, and it's getting even more difficult when attempts at irony or humour are involved. Gestumblindi (talk) 22:38, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Gestumblindi I agree. The essay focuses on making an extra effort in one's initial post, or when one proposes something or does something. It doesn't say much about our need to be mellow in response to someone else who is struggling to communicate, or who's communication could be misinterpreted. Commons not only gets users from other wikis but also people who are the subject of photographs or who took the photographs that are scraped from other websites. We need to be extra helpful to people making their first tentative steps on wiki. -- Colin (talk) 08:30, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

I would be interested to know how the proposer/supporters intend to use this essay if it became a guideline or policy. I strongly suspect the only word of the essay that matters to them is MELLOW, and might then go around blocking people or seeking blocks on people who they personally feel are not being mellow. Actually reading the text as if it were a guideline, shows fundamental problems:

  • "Compromise, reasonableness, and explanation are needed". Are we to block people who refuse to compromise? Who we think are unreasonable? Or who don't explain well?
  • "Remember: consensus is wiki's building block". I am struggling to remember the last proposal that was made on Commons and entered into with an effort to seek consensus, rather than dumbly opening a poll and getting polarised votes which some admin is expected to tally and resolve. If being blocked for making a proposal with a voting section got people blocked, I've vote for that. That includes this proposal.
  • "So take the time... be patient... there is no rush". Are we to block hasty people?
  • "Help translate stuff", "help with the tools", "help with the backlog". Should we block people who do none of these, who selfishly just take and upload photos? Or who just categorise things, or just vote at QI?
  • "Kick back and enjoy some of the awesome work your fellow contributors have already done" I guess oppose votes at QI/FP are block-worthy now.
  • Don't start brawls over stuff that doesn't matter. Colors of things, names, titles, which lang to use". Wow, that's a few instant blocks.

An actual guideline, rather than an essay, focuses on those areas of good/bad behaviour that the community can agree on and feel are important enough to regulate. It would include how the community might respond to uncivil behaviour with the aim of keeping valuable contributors and helping them work better together. It would offer guidance on how and when a block may be appropriate or some alternative sanction.

It is notable that several of the supporters of making this a guideline have been rather unmellow in recent times. They've got themselves into a dispute where their behaviour is every bit as unmellow as the other person they accuse. This is not to pick on them: that problem is universal. We are all human and find it easier to spot flaws in others than ourselves. A wise person once said

"Being blocked has never made anyone more civil. On many occasions, it has made people less civil. Nonetheless, our default approach to increasing the general level of civility is to block people"

The background to this proposal is that the proposer wishes to block another user, has thus far failed to convince admins at AN/U to act, and laments that Commons lacks a Civility policy. An off-the-cuff suggestion that COM:MELLOW might suffice prompted this hasty proposal. COM:MELLOW advises us not to be hasty. If Jeff wants a Civility policy, then work on one and seek community consensus as you go. But leave this essay be. -- Colin (talk) 11:57, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

@Colin: I made !voting and discussion sections because all the successful proposals have them, and I named them uniquely to combat browsers' annoying habit of jumping to the first "Votes" or "Discussion" section header they see. I'm sorry if I jumped the gun, but I have yet to see a guide or template for proposal creation.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 19:42, 3 April 2019 (UTC)
See Voting is Evil and Wikipedia:Polling is not a substitute for discussion and Wikipedia:Consensus. I fully understand the "I'm just copying what other people do", but I also thought these very well known essays/guidelines were familiar to Commons folk too. You aren't exactly a newbie. Much like COM:MELLOW, lots of people have read those essays, and then forget about them when they want to make a proposal. Or they are so hasty to change things, that they ignore MELLOW and rush into a poll. I have been involved in the creation of two guidelines on Wikipedia and those took over a year to develop and weeks of community review before being accepted. I don't think a Commons Civility policy can be created overnight and there isn't one lying about on a shelf for us to promote.
It is worth reading those essays and you will notice the flaws we often see with polls. For example, it encourages people to expressed polarised views that do not acknowledge the merits of the opposite argument, and it encourages only a limited set of responses. If this had been opened as a discussion on Commons that you felt Commons needs some policy/guideline regarding behavioural expectations, procedures for dealing with problematic behaviour and sanctions, then that leaves it open for people to contribute all sorts of ideas to the pot. A poll would only then be used to confirm the feeling that the community has reached consensus. Instead we often launch a poll with absolutely no idea of community response and a take-it-or-leave-it proposed text/action.
A similar problem can be seen with how Commons deals with incivility: you went to AN/U to ask for a block. We rush immediately into the "support/vote" mentality and consider only that a block is the option. Wikipedia has a more mature set of procedures, which possibly don't translate to the smaller community here. But on Wiki you'd be required to show that you and several others had attempted to resolve the problem and failed. And then the behavioural issues would be examined at length and consider the actions of others too. I'm not claiming Wiki is perfect or a model to follow. But it can be slower and more considered. That's why I think it really quite funny that a few people are rushing to promote an essay, so they can block people, when the essay says there is no rush, and you should instead make more of an effort to get along with each other. -- Colin (talk) 07:54, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
I removed historical information that didn't really belong here, and comments on it. Sorry.   — Jeff G. ツ please ping or talk to me 00:02, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

I guess I'll add in my two pennies worth here. I basically agree with what Colin is saying. Rather than promote a good essay which needs some rework as a guideline to use as some ad hoc reason to block someone (I'll note that I think a block is not warranted here), why not create a Commons Civility guideline the right way and do a RfC so we have a discussion on what a Civility policy should look like and what the bounds of it are? Since Commons is a multilingual project and there can be areas in which there can be misunderstandings, formulating policy should be a steady but slow and deliberate process. Abzeronow (talk) 15:54, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

 Comment My vote above means that such a policy is more than needed on Commons. Now the current text may not be perfect, and can certainly be improved. Regards, Yann (talk) 18:10, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
+1. 1,730 words are in this section, ironically making it nearly three times longer than COM:Mellow. Walls of text are an obstruction to consensus. --Fæ (talk) 09:57, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
  • Most guidelines and policy on Wikipedia require many times more words of discussion than the texts themselves. Some individual sentences of policy consume vast amounts of discussion because getting them right is important. This is a short essay, and I would find it very odd indeed if it got promoted to guideline without considerable community discussion. Knee-jerk hasty support votes do nobody any favours. Much of the above discussion is explaining why this "propose & poll" approach to producing a community consensus for change is flawed. It would be nice not to have to explain this sort of common wiki knowledge to Commoners. Honestly, this hasty ill considered proposal should have been speedy closed a while back. -- Colin (talk) 11:16, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
As Colin says above, guidelines and policy requires a lot of words of discussion. I don't disagree with the proposer, Fæ or Yann that we probably do need a Civility policy. I just want any policy to be done right with lengthy discussion and working out the bounds of such a policy before it's put to a vote. Abzeronow (talk) 20:10, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

I applaud Jeff for raising this, and suggesting that MELLOW might be a basis... how flattering. But I think a new policy would be needed, not a promotion. Can the ideas in MELLOW be useful to such a policy? Yes. But it needs a lot of specifics that MELLOW doesn't have. Maybe learn from WP ... including what not to do. ++Lar: t/c 12:10, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Proposal to shorten the warning shown to logged-out users

With the addition of structured data on Commons, there are multiple new input points where logged-out users can see the usual “You’re not logged in, your IP address is visible” warning; it's no longer only the edit box window. The development team would like to update the default message on Commons to be more similar to the rest of the Wikimedia wikis, which will fit better with new inputs. For sake of comparison I'm using English-language editions of wikis, but other languages have messages of similar brevity.

  • Commons today: You are not currently logged in. While you are free to edit without logging in, your IP address (viewable on your talkpage, where you can check messages sent to your IP) will be recorded in this page's edit history. Creating an account will conceal your IP address and provide you with many other benefits. Please do not save test edits. If you want to experiment, please use the Sandbox.

...as compared to...

  • Wikidata today: Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to a user name, among other benefits.
  • English Wikipedia today: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to a user name, among other benefits.
  • English Wikivoyage today: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible when you save an edit. To have your edit associated with a user name instead (among other benefits), log in or sign up.

The proposed new text for Commons:

  • You are not logged in and your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. Logging in or creating an account will conceal your IP address and provide you with many other benefits. Please do not save test edits. If you want to experiment, please use the Sandbox.

What do y'all think? Keegan (WMF) (talk) 19:15, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

  • +1. While we're at it, however, better link mw:Help:Logging in rather than a monolingual page. Similarly, rather than a technical page which most people won't understand it's better to have "your IP address" link special:Mypage. These are both changes which could be made in the MediaWiki default as well, which I currently consider superior. Nemo 19:45, 3 April 2019 (UTC)
Great suggestion, thank you. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 20:21, 3 April 2019 (UTC)
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