Noticeboard?

[Pasi Lallinaho]

On 2016-06-08 18:29, Gunnar Hjalmarsson wrote:
> On 2016-06-08 16:47, Pasi Lallinaho wrote:
>> On 2016-06-08 17:16, Gunnar Hjalmarsson wrote:
>>> On 2016-06-08 15:18, Pasi Lallinaho wrote:
>>>> Again, the problem isn't with spambots, it's about microworkers
>>>> (or Mechnical Turks) who are able to pass many spam-preventing
>>>> measures much easier. Especially if we tell them how they can do
>>>> that.
>>>>
>>>> Ultimately it comes down to telling apart a legimitate
>>>> contributor and somebody who fakes to be one.
>>> Pasi, both what you say above, and what Elisabeth said in another
>>> message, imply that the community is no longer able to grant edit
>>> access to serious community members, since we don't have the means
>>> to distinguish them from vandals. Is that what you are saying? Did
>>> the vandals win?
>> I'm not saying anybody has won.
>>
>> I'm one of the administrators of the Etherpad team, and while that
>> team was enabled to edit the wiki, I did some moderation. While there
>> are clear cases where somebody is or is not a legimitate contributor,
>> there are definintely cases where this is not clear at all.
>>
>> Having to manually figure this out infinitely is not something I am
>> willing to do, and it's not realistic to think that there are enough
>> community members to do this sustainably enough. This is what me and
>> Elizabeth are saying, both with experience on the moderation.
> All respect for the work you did so far. But then this - too - is
> actually an issue due to lack of volunteers. Up to now this has not been
> clear, at least not to me.
>
>> Anyway, I was originally responding to Albertos idea of telling the
>> world what the applicants need to do in order to get approved to a
>> team that grants them edit permissions. If we do this, I can assure
>> you the moderation queue will definitely be even longer than it is
>> now, and we will be pouring even more work into the moderation.
> Which originally was my idea... But how on earth would it work if we
> don't let people know how to get edit access? It would effectively be
> equivalent to closing the wikis, wouldn't it?

There are still certain teams which have edit access. One of these teams 
is the Ubuntu members team.

To join that team, you will have to contribute to Ubuntu significantly, 
so it isn't likely of interest for the mechanical turks (because they 
don't get much money for the spamming "work" they do, and it would be 
unprofitable and too slow to get approved - especially since you would 
get removed from the team very quickly after your first spam attack...)

Other teams with edit access include other more heavily moderated teams, 
like the Xubuntu team etc. Adding as many of these more heavily 
moderated teams as editors of the wiki is a good way to go, and by doing 
that, we should be covering most of the active community.

This way you get edit access to the wikis once you have gained trust in 
the community. The only thing we need to tell people is that they should 
contribute to the community to get the edit access. I know this isn't 
the perfect solution, but it's better than nothing.

>> If we're struggling to find contributors to do documentation work,
>> how would we suddenly find contributors to moderate?
> Good question...
>
> Maybe there are two options: Either keeping the wikis closed for
> community contributions, or take a chance by opening them again as it
> was before and see what happens (and taking backups before doing so...).

I don't think the first option is something the community wishes to do. 
However, there is some pressure from the Canonical IS for a solution in 
this direction, as they are unwilling to constantly clean up the wiki 
and fight the spammers.

Additionally, if that's the way to go, then we should at least take 
contributions from the community in a way or other - be it Launchpad 
bugs or something else. Of course, it'll need volunteers to take the 
changes to production. Submitting a good amount of changes this way 
could be a way to be approved to a moderated team with edit access.

Opening the wikis again and doing backups would mean involving the IS, 
and again, I'm not sure how willing they are to do this. Taking backups 
(and likely restoring some data) will mean more work for them.

Considering my previous experiences, I don't think it's realistic to 
expect that action would be taken soon enough to not end up with a 
completely messy wiki.

Cheers,
Pasi

-- 
Pasi Lallinaho (knome)       › http://open.knome.fi/
Leader of Shimmer Project    › http://shimmerproject.org/
Xubuntu Website Lead         › http://xubuntu.org/