Wikipedia talk:Community health initiative on English Wikipedia/User Mute features

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Video Wikipedia talk:Community health initiative on English Wikipedia/User Mute features

More consensus needed

This is # 127 in the 2016 community expectations list, with only 14 votes of support. Before any development takes place, there needs to be more consensus that this is necessary. thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 01:36, June 10, 2017 (UTC)

@Mike Peel: Thank you for commenting. Phabricator tickets show the history of work performed on the Notice blacklist. This work was first started by a volunteer last year, and then worked by WMF staff, and recently worked together at Hackathon. We will document this timeline better on the wiki so that it is clearer without going to the Phabricator. As a new team, we've just adapted our list of priorities, best practices, and engaged in regular wikimedia-style discussions about our work. In the future there will be further notice of our potential jobs and a wide opportunity for engagement on the matter. But due to various stakeholders for the anti-harassment team work, we are unlikely to use voting on the wiki as the only way to prioritize our work.

On the English Wikipedia, find announcements and discussions about the Village pump and Wikipedia talks: The public health initiative on the Wikipedia English SPoore (WMF) (talk), Community Advocate, public health initiative (talk) 22:24, June 12, 2017 (UTC)

Maps Wikipedia talk:Community health initiative on English Wikipedia/User Mute features

Changes we made to the blacklist before release & amp; Post release release strategy and analysis

Halo;

I have posted # Changes we made to the blacklist before release and the #Release strategy and post release analysis for those interested. Feedback is appreciated. - TBolliger (WMF) (talk) 18:37, June 23, 2017 (UTC)

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Rename from' Blacklist 'to' Users who are Mute '

Hello all. Before it left the beta and released as a feature, we reconsidered its name. 'Blacklist' feels too aggressive and provocative so we want to rename the feature. We think the verb is 'Mute.' The section in the preference will be labeled 'User Silenced'. Mind? Alternative suggestions? - Trevor Bolliger, WMF Product Manager? 20:05, July 12, 2017 (UTC)

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Not a fan...

A small number of editors are subject to long-term harassment. I know cases where mute features have just been released will not be enough because a bully can make dozens of accounts throw-away and use them to interrupt their target. How about adding an option to allow only notifications from users with certain user access levels. For example, Apple may allow notifications only by users with WP: EXTENDEDCONFIRMED (30 days/500 edits) exact. This request is very important for EmailUser Mute which is still under development. Johnuniq (talk) 02:23, August 29, 2017 (UTC)

See here. I suspect this will be next in the development queue. MER-C 03:25, August 29, 2017 (UTC)

Johnuniq, yes, this is one of the additional options to consider, especially for EmailUser mute. This is a favorite upgrade I've discussed so far because I think it can significantly reduce the number of accounts being discarded by harassing via email. SPOore (WMF), Community Advocate, public health initiative (talk) 15:06, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

As someone who has received hundreds of rough emails via the wikipedia mail system, I would strongly encourage this implementation. Personally, I have long unticked "Enable email from other users" due to abuse. This feature is much more needed than this "mute" feature. Huldra (talk) 21:04, September 18, 2017 (UTC)

src: bhclondon.org.uk

Comment from AN

I was asked to add a comment I made on AN here, so:

I see a certain potential for this "feature" to be a new source of small contentions over "who silenced who, and how do I know if I am not informed?" although. Also, if users are actually harassed perhaps, in the future told to "just mute them" rather than having a possible legitimate problem handled correctly, then that would not be a good thing. - Begoon 10:03, August 29, 2017 (UTC)

• Agree with Begoon. We do not need features that impede communication. Tide rolls 14:51, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

Prior to the User mute notice, anyone can turn off multi-type notifications in User Preferences. Users will not know whether all pings are turned off or just for them unless it is disclosed to them. So, there's no guarantee that the notification reaches anyone. That is the reason why User's page notification should be used for important notifications.

Also, when two users do not match each other, from the start, suggestions are often given to either or both "to ignore each other and just go about your work." The silent user feature makes this more likely. This is a tool to reduce negative interactions without going through long discussions drawn out on wikis that result in interaction restrictions. Not a perfect solution (just a little), but a useful tool in some circumstances. SPOore (WMF), Community Advocate, public health initiative (talk) 15:24, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

I will not revisit the entire disaster change notification feature, Sydney, but I'm not my fan. Again, they hamper communication. I have learned over the years to not put much energy into arguing points in Meta and WMF positions. I just have to speak with my conscience. Now it's done. Tide rolls 15:34, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

Sydney, I do not really see how that response resolves my particular problem, sorry. I also share Tide rolls' feelings about common uses in expressing disapproval with the decision imposed by WMF. It's frustrating, and I really hope it's not so. - Begoon 00:58, August 30, 2017 (UTC)

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Implementation

There is no community consensus to implement this at this time. Please do not do that until there. - Begoon 11:09, August 29, 2017 (UTC)

Indeed. - Roxy dog. skin 13:54, August 29, 2017 (UTC)

Agreed. Doug Weller talk 17:08, August 29, 2017 (UTC)

Agreed. It takes a much wider discussion. I do not see any problems with the email section; the disabled notification has a number of possible problems as mentioned above. Black Kite (talk) 18:23, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

I'm sorry that people have not heard of the Notifications Mute feature until now. We announce that we are working on it and asking for feedback in several places, including at the village pump: (See Wikipedia: The village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive 55 # Invitation to test and discuss the blacklist of Echo notices) and we do not really get much response. We also talked about it in Wikimania earlier this month and did not hear any negative reaction to the idea. But this feature of Mute is our team's first feature, and we're still figuring out the best way to reach people who are interested in our work.

We think this feature is important for people who feel harassed and distracted by other editors, who ping in some places just to get their skin. This is not an unusual case on Wikipedia, maybe everyone has experienced it at least at some point. We see the feature as an option that people can use to lower the volume in that situation. It does not create impenetrable walls, or make other people's messages disappear. If someone needs to talk to them about their editing behavior, they can post on the user's talk page, and it still generates regular notifications. So we do not really see this as a big barrier to communication.

Some people here say that if the editor bothers you, then you can go to the admin and get them quickly blocked. That's not what we see on the wiki, and that's not what we've heard from the user interviews we've done. Getting someone blocked is a pretty protracted and serious process. Also, the goal here is to lower the volume on an interaction before it turns into a blockable event. This is a tool that people can use for temporary help when they just want to complete some work on other parts of the wiki, without constantly pinging unrelated pages because someone is annoyed with them.

I understand that people worry that people will use this feature as a tool to create more drama. It's possible, but it feels like something we can see when it actually happens. This feature is currently released and available for use by people, and it does not feel like the potential of people who quarrel about it is more important than the value that can be reserved for people who want to use it, especially if it helps retain possible users stop completely edit or disable all their notifications. what do you think? - Trevor Bolliger, WMF Product Manager? 18:43, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

So, TBolliger, how do you handle the usual situation, easily highlighted in green, above? Edit, and while re-reading your post, your announcement about this is hardly designed to provide information, does it? - Roxy dog. bark 18:49, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

Roxy dog: In that situation, you will post on the newbie user talk page, and have a conversation about using the primary source. Beginners will still get notifications about their own user talk. This feature does not cut you from communication with other editors; it's just a good control over the notifications you want to see. - DannyH (WMF) (talk) 23:20, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

And, nothing surprising, the WMF response was "we heard what you said but we did it anyway." That approach always works well. - Begoon 20:22, August 30, 2017 (UTC)

Hello Begoon, Trevor's post today and my previous update do not specify that the feature is implemented on August 28th on all wikis with echo notifications. I'm sorry that we did not explain it earlier in the discussion. SPOore (WMF), Community Advocate, public health initiative (talk) 20:36, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

Hello everyone, I'd like to add some deliberations and invite you to engage with the Anti-harassment tool team because we are interested in more feedback about the feature.

These are some of the social aspects of the tools that are taken into account when designing the mute features. I am sure that there is room for additional consideration and welcomes your addition.:

• Q. Most importantly, are new mute users for the notification feature changing the main workflow or policy enforcement practices?
• A. No, because the echo notification is an optional feature and does not need to be changed or used by any user. Other notification methods are required for the dispute resolution process or other important notification types.

• Q. Whether selective use of the mute feature will increase the use of the overall notification.
• A. Maybe. We do not know for sure. But if we can stop people who disable notifications from all users to avoid unproductive notifications from someone, then that will increase overall usage.

• Q. Can the reduction of unproductive notifications make Wikipedia a more hospitable environment? Can a new mute feature be used to address negative interactions between users early in the conflict and prevent escalation?
• A. Maybe. Increased availability of user preferences can help reduce some types of conflicts that stem from different communication styles. This adds more ability to control interactions that the user finds very annoying.

• Q. Will the mute feature introduce potential opportunities for abuse or conflict?
• A. Yes, my personal observations for 11 years show that virally all types of features can and will be misused. And much can be used to increase conflict. We need to monitor and make changes as needed. Some of the changes that have been made are a) The muted user list is changed to private so it will not be seen as a list of public enemies. b) This feature is renamed to mute instead of a blacklist that has strong negative connectivity.

• Q. Will the mute user feature reduce collaboration?
• A. Maybe not. This feature is different from blocking features on other websites that completely and completely stop all communication paths between individuals on the platform. But we are watching and want to find a good method to measure the effect.

• Q. What are the unintentional concessions of the mute user feature?
• A. We do not know yet. But we are interested to learn it so that features can be upgraded to eliminate it if possible. We have noted some of the situations mentioned on this page and would like to discuss them further to better understand the problem.

We are interested to hear what you think about how we can measure whether the feature makes Wikipedia a more friendly and collaborative community. SPOore (WMF), Community Advocate, community health initiative (talk) 20:28, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

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Another website has it

But most of the other websites may tend to be a forum for recreational discussion, not collaborative workspaces. "Ignoring other users and going about your work" does not matter if you talk about your favorite sports team in Reddit, but here it's called battle editing and is an easy way to get banned. Often it seems more discussion than less.

I think this feature set makes sense in its core. There is an option to achieve it - exit - and it is an option we do not want to make. But there are some thoughts:

• I see suggestions for adding a mute function by a third party. It sounds like something you might want to provide for arbcom (which usually has more leeway in finding alternative solutions). I would advise to put an expiration date on the dumb third party. In this case you might also want to add an option to mute someone to a large group of users.
• It makes sense to allow the community to make exceptions for the mute option. For example, I can imagine that there are certain officials who do not want to be silenced (again, for example arbcom members), because they may have an important message to convey - even if they do not want to hear it. It's a peripheral case, I'd be fine to handle it through Phabricator on a case-by-case basis.
• Is it possible to make mute a global thing, not a local?

effeets anders 20:45, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

Hello @Effeietsanders: thanks for your suggestions and questions. In addition to mute, we also think about ways to support different editing restrictions. Admin or ArbCom mandated Mute may very well fall into this basket. I've added it as "required to delete." Can you explain what you mean by "In this case you might also want to add an option to mute someone to a large group of users." - would you suggest Bananas will not receive notifications if the group is muted, or will not be able to send a notification?

Yes, I agree that there may be some users excluded from Muted. This can be done by permission level or at user level per user. We are open to building if the need arises by itself.

Like making this global... After a technical investigation (see Phabricator T171624 ticket), we realize it will take several months to build a global solution. We still want (T167902) but maybe Global Preferences (T16950) will be enough. - Trevor Bolliger, WMF Product Manager? 22:34, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

@TBolliger (WMF): Thank you for your response. With the option to mute someone to a larger group (arbcom mandated), I mean that Banana will not be able to send notifications to that group. But that is the edge case - so if it becomes complicated, I would not worry too much about it.

Exceptions, if you can commit to making exceptions quickly, if those needs arise, that would be enough. I do not expect a lot of cases. (I mostly think of making exceptions for users with certain privileges, rather than a single set of individuals).

I think putting this in Global Preferences would make sense. No need to duplicate that effort. effeets anders 07:09, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

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Where is this Mute feature?

? - Roxy dog. skin 12:30, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

Roxy dog: This is at the bottom of the Notifications tab in Preferences. - DannyH (WMF) (talk) 17:09, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

Thank you. Now I understand better what is going on, it will not affect me much, if at all. I can still show the beginners what they are doing wrong. I do not care if they ignore me, because that might mean they will be blocked, or get annoyed and leave. I am not listing this page. I'm curious about how much money this exercise is spending !! I have never seen so many WMF sigs on one page. - Roxy dog. skins 17:58, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

Since this is a WMF initiative, it makes sense to me that the involved WMF employees will comment on it. Is it better for them to remain silent than respond to editor questions and concerns? Funcrunch (talk) 18:07, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

I can not help saying that it would be better for them to do something useful for us editors. Not this. - Roxy dog. skins 18:16, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

"Us" editor are all relative. It's great that you do not have to use this tool! I hope I will not need it too. But even just 14 editors who explicitly take the time to say that they want it on the wish list of the community, I hope it helps fulfill their needs. Looking forward to learning more about how it works - a compliment to people who are experimenting with new tools to tackle harassment on our projects. Siko (talk) 20:29, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

Roxy dogs: If you're interested in what our team is working on this year, you can check out the results of this year's Community Desire Survey, and the project described on Wikipedia: The public health initiative on the English Wikipedia page. This is one part of a wide range of projects. :) - DannyH (WMF) (talk) 20:34, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

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Ironic

From the comments here and in ANI, and from the longer discussion, it is somewhat ironic that one of the most persistent editor situations not to feel accepted and even felt pursued is the communication between editors and WMF, with people no longer bothering to discuss things with WMF (here, in Meta, Phabricator,...) for a number of reasons, including the way some people at WMF tend to "silence" criticism and criticism (eg by removing it from the phabricator, or by removing requests from the wishlist because not in accordance with predefined categories or rules). I do not know if it has made an official "public expectations list", but a completely different approach to project choice, software development, software launch, and communications with the public, seems to be a clear expectation from a number of fair editors in enwiki ( and from what I see at least dewiki as well), far ahead of these "silent" features and the like. Fram (talk) 10:24, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

@Fram: I get this impression quite deviate from the purpose of this conversation. If you have feedback on how the wish list is collected, I suggest that you put it in the right place. I would also suggest that you add some quotes to your comments, as my hand itching to type 'required quotes' for some of your statements. effeets anders 10:34, September 1, 2017 (UTC)

(mute) Fram (talk) 10:37, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

Yay.

Feel my lack of enthusiasm. We need to collaborate and communicate. Can we force the editor to silence others? 95% of the time, if you must be muted, you need a wiki-break. L3X1 (distÃÆ'Â|nt write) 03:14, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

There may be confusion over what it causes. Suppose some points are being debated on an article talk page where some editors argue. Disabling does not affect the situation - people can continue to argue without restrictions. If someone changes the article but is not involved in the discussion, anyone can go to the person's conversation and ask them to engage in the article talk. Notifications are always an optional feature, so pinging a person is never sure to work (especially when many people do not follow the details of adding new notifications with a new signature). Disabling is the option so if the editors want to pull off the topics they can do, without irritation as it is repeatedly pinged by fans who want to continue despite anyone withdrawing. Different people - some welcome the opportunity to slap an opponent, while others just want to step back. Johnuniq (talk) 04:44, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

But you did not turn off the discussion, you turned off the selected editor. Fram (talk) 08:22, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Yes, a person can turn notifications off from one or more individuals. But an editor who wants certain results in the article should participate in discussions on his talk page. I have seen cases where contributors who do not understand continue to ping to people long after they are fired. It will not worry me but people are different. Notice of battlefield participants may not rise to the level of getting action on ANI but still causing irritation or inconvenience to the recipient. Yes, I have seen it. No, I will not link to an instance. Johnuniq (talk) 09:58, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Maybe an automatic time kick? After some time, say 3 months, the name will be removed from the mute list? L3X1 (distÃÆ'Â|nt write) 22:57, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Also mute features do not care about the person editing your talk page? I mute Hypn0toad and then use that account to change the status settings liek I usually do every day, it still displays the Echo "New Messages" thing yellow. L3X1 (distÃÆ'Â|nt write) 01:41, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

That's good. Of course someone is notified if someone posts on their conversation. The person has the option of asking the poster not to repeat, and anyone can take the perpetrator over and over to ANI if they insist on making an unwarranted post. The complexity of someone on their page often ends with sanctions because abuse is so obvious. Johnuniq (talk) 03:49, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Why is this implemented?

WMF People; there is no consensus for this in the 2016 Community Wishlist (14 support, 10 opposed), there is a demand here from the beginning till now either not to apply it or to get a clear consensus first, but you apply it too. Why do you have a community wishlist survey if you do not respect the wishes of the people and just do what you love? This is not something important that should be implemented (like watch list restrictions up to max 1000 changes) no matter whether people like it or not. Fram (talk) 11:35, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

The Anti-Harassment team is a sub-team of the WMF Tech Support team specifically created to build tools to reduce harassment and user error on Wikipedia. Although we find inspiration from the proposal Wishlist, our work is not prioritized based on the wish list.

We 100% really want and need feedback from the community to make sure we're building real solutions for real problems. We started a conversation about this Mute feature in June at Meta and ENWP, but we had to do more to involve more votes, including those who supported and opposed the original proposal of the Wishlist and those who had never heard of it. We can always do better in bringing more people to the conversation. - Trevor Bolliger, WMF Product Manager? 23:04, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

... but in the meantime we applied it. Right... Fram (talk) 06:47, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Scenario

" For example, if User: Apple Mutes User: Banana on Wikipedia:

• Bananas can still connect to a Users username: Apple on the talk page and successfully save the changes, but Apples will not receive notices that Bananas mention it.
• Bananas will still receive a notification of 'mentions of success', if they enable that preference. "

Now I can see why - if the system does not tell B that A has silenced it, then the fact that no notification of 'mentions of success' will "give the game" - so we let B mention success.

But let's assume there's no real conflict between 2 pieces, but A has decided to mute B just because he thinks he has some too much ping ping pong from him lately.

So, moments later, something very important happened, and B started pinging it to page A. He did this several times, each time receiving a notification of 'mentions of success', up, confused by the lack of response, he went to the A talk page and said, "Hey, I've pinged you like crazy - page X is about to explode!" "Oh yes," said A, "sorry, I silenced you..."

Poor old B, never thought he had made a mistake - thought A was his friend. Now he is crushed and angry.

As a person who edits in the Israeli/Palestinian territories, I am no stranger to harassment, to place it diplomatically. (My user page is protected for a reason, because I'm sure the admin can see.) I'm confused with this new "tool"... personally I do not see any good.

Yes, I enrolled in some discussion forums, where the "mute" button as usual, and there I use it... quite often. In places like that one finally learns who has something useful to say... and who does not.

But Wikipedia is not a discussion forum. Well, at least not least! If someone calls me "a fanatic muslim terrorist", (see this) or return me, I would be curious.

If you want to help a harassed editor, what about SUL protecting user pages? I have suggested it here. My user page is here in en.wp protected, so this is my meta, commons, and i believe de.wp page..... It only leaves 100 wikis for next my dear friends get access to the computer again. , Huldra (talk) 21:31, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

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