Wikimedia's hidden backrooms

[Dysklyver]

I was going to post this on Wikipediocracy, but then various Wikipedians might write stupid shit valuable insight in the same thread about how it's all a conspiracy theory or something.

So basically, this is a look at what "fishbowl" wikis there are. Some are private and little known, and in general these wikis are used in conjunction with the mailing lists.

The canonical WMF owned domains are hard coded into the Google Chrome web-browser, currently, they are:

wikipedia.org
wikimedia.org
wiktionary.org
wikiquote.org
wikibooks.org
wikisource.org
wikinews.org
wikiversity.org
wikidata.org
wikivoyage.org
wikimediafoundation.org
mediawiki.org
wmfusercontent.org
w.wiki

There are other domains owned by the WMF, but they are not relevant here because they are generally only used as redirects or for tools, for example tools.wmflabs.org. Note that en.wikipedia.org is a subdomain of wikipedia.org, it is not a separate domain in itself, all the different languages are handled by subdomains in this way. Therefore all WMF main wiki's are listed in the STS preload list as a few domains, although there are many hundreds of subdomains.

This itself is not very relevant, what is important is looking at the subdomains for wikimedia.org. These are generally not SUL enabled wikis, and are either less well known or access restricted.

wikitech.wikimedia.org
An internal tech wiki, open access and mainly used by devs for wikimedia specific docs and configuration notes. (General tech notes not wikimedia specific go on mediawiki.org instead).

meta.wikimedia.org
Everyone knows about meta, it's a wiki for discussing other wiki's, and for doing coordination and documentation as well as planning and analysis of stuff.
Various pointless wikis
A number of Wikis such as; ten.wikipedia.org, quality.wikimedia.org, usability.wikimedia.org, strategy.wikimedia.org, outreach.wikimedia.org were all made for various high level processes and eventually discontinued in favour of meta-wiki.

wikimania2018.wikimedia.org etc
This is a set of fourteen wikis for the wikimania event, starting in 2005 one has been made each year. Open access but edit locked once the event year is over.
wikimaniateamwiki
Initially I thought this was wikimania.wikimedia.org, but later realised it was the restricted access wikimaniateam.wikimedia.org.

nyc.wikimedia.org etc
Seventeen wikis specifically for Wikimedia chapters, the British chapter breaks the trend with wikimedia.org.uk, and Norway also has noboard-chapters.wikimedia.org. Four of the chapter sites seem to be in some way locked with others restricted.
foundation.wikimedia.org
Used to be a wiki for the Wikimedia Foundation, now somewhat superseded by wikimediafoundation.org which is hosted on wordpress (widely considered to be a massive sellout) and completely closed.

advisorswiki
A closed private wiki historically used by the Advisory Board (meta-page) in conjunction with their mailing list.
internal.wikimedia.org
Used historically by the Wikimedia Foundation board and staff members and other trusted people, fell out of use by 2015, and was closed in October 2018.
chairwiki
Almost never used, and now being closed, was originally for the Wikimedia board.

arbcom-enwiki
A private wiki for the English Wikipedia arbitration committee. It is one of a set of arbcom wikis for the different language projects, and has changed domain name before, see T33335 and T102814 and T102826. Other arbcom wikis include; arbcom-cswiki, arbcom-dewiki, arbcom-fiwiki and arbcom-nlwiki.

dumps.wikimedia.org
This wiki contains backup dumps of all Wikimedia sites for interested people to download.
auditcom.wikimedia.org
Used mainly prior to 2008 by the Wikimedia Foundation Audit Committee

checkuserwiki
This wiki is used to indefinitely store data on hundreds of sockpuppets and LTA's for years longer than the CU tool maintains logs. It is a generally accepted fact that this wiki holds detailed SPI type logs on many users, and charts to assist in finding socks, the general consensus is that most LTA pages that were deleted per WP:DENY from Wikipedia were kept here and expanded.
stewardwiki
Everything you ever wanted to know about the stewards... behind a firewall.
OTRS-wiki
Part of the OTRS system, basically used by OTRS volunteers to coordinate with the OTRS ticket system, email queues, and freenode IRC channels (of which there is the public OTRS channel, the private channel, and several invite only interview rooms.)

zerowiki
The rather crappy "Wikipedia Zero" project.

loginwiki
This wiki governs logins on all SUL wiki infrastructure, stewards can run a CU check on this wiki to check user details globally. It connects a live feed to an irc channel (#internal on irc.wikimedia.org:6667) for bots to use login data.

And many many more, such as:

grantswiki
Closed in 2006 in favour of some other process, this was a private wiki for grants administration.
boardwiki
Used by the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees for internal documentation.
boardgovcomwiki
Probably not used, but yet another wiki for the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees
chapcomwiki
A private work space for the Affiliations Committee.

And a whole bunch of private wiki sites that nobody talks about

collabwiki
ecwikimedia
execwiki
electcomwiki
fdcwiki
id_internalwikimedia
movementroleswiki
ilwikimedia
legalteamwiki
officewiki
ombudsmenwiki
iegcomwiki
projectcomwiki
wg_enwiki
transitionteamwiki
techconductwiki
searchcomwiki
spcomwiki

Which I cannot be asked to figure out the urls for right now.

[Graaf Statler]

The checkuserwiki seems to me voilating privacy laws, and seems to me extreem dangerous for Europeaan users and very, very easy to get out of the air in the EU.
One online form will do, because for sure it contains data of European users and that is strikt forbidden to store! You can complain by the EU.
(Not by me, I have better things to do in life like building toy trains than getting wikishit out of the air.)

And this wiki's seems to me very dangers. Because all the abitrolling of the arbs is stored, and WMF can use it against you if they get in legal trouble. It is the same with that steward wiki, it can be a extreem dangers boomerang too. Years later the box of Pandora can be opened.
Stay away from it! You are personal responsible and WMF is very safe behind a legal wall. I said it many times before, don't be WMF's fool!

*arbcom-enwiki
A private wiki for the English Wikipedia arbitration committee. It is one of a set of arbcom wikis for the different language projects, and has changed domain name before, see T33335 and T102814 and T102826. Other arbcom wikis include; arbcom-cswiki, arbcom-dewiki, arbcom-fiwiki and arbcom-nlwiki.

*stewardwiki
Everything you ever wanted to know about the stewards... behind a firewall.

[Dysklyver]

Although there are a lot of fishbowl wikis, I don't think many of them are actually used much. Many of them overlapped or had no clear purpose anyway and have been ignored in favour of mailing lists. I expect the checkuser wiki is a data protection nightmare, but to prove this would require having access to it, and that's somewhat unlikely. It is still interesting stuff.

[Graaf Statler]

Wikipedia/ Meta is in general a legal and data nightmare, Arthur. In fact complete Wikipedia is a nightmare.
And what makes me so extreem happy I was always a outsider and don't have to troll till I drop like for instance our Dutch professor. I have really nothing to do with it, a (I think drunk) professor thought I did, but I am only a spectator and nothing else. I don't play any roll in this wiki drama.

It is a kind of auto trolling system, at the moment you understand wikipedia is a nightmare you are too deep in it, you can't get out of it. And that is the problem.
Because every decent person understands it is legal madness. Only insiders know why, but they are locked up and have to shut up. You have to troll till you drop. Till that day of doom....
Wikipedia is a self-destructive system, Arthur, mark my words. You will see it collaps explosive, at once, because it is a legal woodpile. If someone lightens one little corner the whole dammed pyre lightens and burns down in no time! Nothing will be left.

[CrowsNest]

Dude, you missed the most fucked up one of all...

https://www.wikipediasucks.co/forum/vie ... 4617#p4617

You won't see Wikipedians or their Wikipediocracy fanboys talk about that, ever.

[Graaf Statler]

.......... is the idea Wikipedia has any role to play in preventing terrorism. History and rather proven that it has either had no effect at all, or worse, has fueled intolerance, both within America, and between it and the rest of the globe.

How true. Wikipedia never will help anyone, I said that many times before. And I get more and more the feeling we a drinking here a beer in the basement of a nuclear power plant with a meltdown. Because it absolute clear, the complete wiki dream is running complete out of control. No-one in this world has any grip anymore on this nightmare. WMF is basely abdomen, really I can't take Global Heater Maher and fat boy Alexander serious. Or legal with it's strange Bussels Trolling Group with Dimi and Romaine.

Who knows Vigilant's solution is the answer. Because in some way someone must get the situation under control.

[ericbarbour]

Thanks for assembling that list of "private wikis". I'll drop it on the book wiki. Most are so seeeekret I'm amazed you even managed to discover them. Figures that many of them are dead.

Don't forget their insane list of IRC channels. Most are also dead. The little fucks do not lack for private places to piss at each other.

[NoYesNoNoYes]

https://checkuser.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

It says CC by SA - does that mean it must made available?

[Graaf Statler]

This is where Jimmy is wrong and the whole probelm Wikipedia in a nut shell.

The best thing about Wikipedia is its transparency around how it created and what's going on.

Wikipedia is far from transparent. Wikipedia is one big hidden backroom.
And that is reason I say Wikipedia is bild up out of empty words, just words, lies and words. Paroles, rien que des mots. It is empty house of cards based on rien que des mots, on nothing.

[ericbarbour]

Wikipedia is far from transparent. Wikipedia is one big hidden backroom.

And young people swallow the "transparent" lie without hesitation.