PrivacyWiki talk:Namespaces

Do you have any input in terms of how the namespaces should be structured. I have tried to delineate them in a way that enables us to write about a variety of content and make it clear which page should have which type of focus. Do you think this is something that's conceptually useful? 21x (talk) 17:12, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Proposal on new namespace
I will suggest structuring the namespaces into 3 parts: Mainspace, concept, and guides.

This is to make for the wiki to be more objective, which is important as wiki can be edited by everyone and if subjective, disputes may happen. Below are how the namespaces work:

The alternative and the recommended namespace are actually the same, so it can be merged into the mainspace, which is for analysis of the good and bad softwares from a privacy standpoint and will require citations for the claims, see my work like ProtonMail, documenting the good and bad qualities of the softwares from a privacy standpoint. As guides are expressing the steps towards privacy, it is the best namespace to give minor advises and suggestions, which I think the weight of advises should not amount to much, as it is quite subjective. An example will be Adblocking, which includes advises like “donate instead” and suggestions of softwares, but at the same time it tells how to block ads. This will be a great match to the Guide namespace. Finally, the concept namespace remain the same function.

I believe this categorization would be more clear. Matttest (talk) 09:01, 13 July 2022 (UTC)


 * @Matttest Yeah, I moatly agree. Mainspace should contain content looking at specific companies or technologies, and it should be clear, concise, practical. I don't know about demanding sourcing for everything, but certainly for factual claims of misbehaviour that could be seen as disparaging of a person or a company.
 * But the wiki maintains that privacy is a human right, and opinions pointed in that direction should be accepted and not be a problem. I don't think it's helpful to chase Wikipedia level of objectivity. This is ultimately a wiki that advocates for a specific worldview, which is that personal privacy should be respected.
 * It also should not shy away from political topics which are supporting privacy, such as supporting Edward Snowden or Electronic Frontier Foundation.
 * But, yeah, alternative vs recommended are sort of the same. I just wanted to make it a clear distinction vs privacy-minded solutions (recommended) and privacy hostile ones, for which we provide alternatives (alternatives). The hope is that we would build a list of, for example, good email providers, and then the list could be transcluded into the article for all the bad email providers, such as Hotmail, Gmail, and others. But I suppose, we can just do this via templates, so having a separate namespace is redundant.
 * And yeah, we can move the adblocking article to Guides namespace (with a redirect in mainspace). 21x (talk) 11:20, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi, I have procedurally moving the Adblocking article to Guide:Blocking Ads as consensus of this discussion, leaving a redirect behind. My idea that the mainspace can be used for documentation of the good and bad qualities of softwares is inspired by Qualitipedia and its affiliated wikis. I think we can get the current existing articles to move back to the Guide: namespace if it mainly on the method or Concept: if it mainly focus on definition, examples are like VPN, which describes the protocols and diffs from TOR and other similar technologies. These articles will be useful for inspiration when creating new guides and concepts. Matttest (talk) 07:13, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Mainspace is envisioned to be for practical advice. We can have multiple articles of the same names, such as VPN (practical advice about being private when using VPNs), Guide:VPN (setting up and choosing VPN), Concept:VPN (concepts of tunneling data over the internet).
 * I do not support making this a reception wiki for companies and whether they respect privacy. It should be educational and practical, primarily. Opinons need to be in service of the core educational goals. 21x (talk) 10:49, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
 * This idea is just making the categorisation more clear - as the scope of mainspace and guides are currently overlapping. Just take a look at Android, it includes advises but also steps to achieve it. These two cannot be separated in a good way, as if the article include only advises, it will be very short (i.e. the content will only be "Change the permissions that the apps can access" then nothing, as after this advise in one sentence, the main point will still be how to achieve it). Instead I suggest something like "Mitigation guide for android" and then merging them into the Guide: namespace, and the mainspace will be covering the good and bad qualities of android. This will definitely benefits. Note that this won’t make this wiki to be a reception wiki, as the importance of the three namespaces will be the under the same weight and focus - the Mainspace to analyse companies, the Guides to give advises and the steps to achieve it, and the Concept remains its function. Matttest (talk) 03:37, 17 July 2022 (UTC)
 * @21x: I wonder if you are busy. I am planning to move the current content of Android to “Mitigation Guide for Android”. Then, its mainspace will be documenting its good and bad qualities, with a link to the guide, noting that “its bad qualities can be mitigated following the advises and steps in the guide”. Let me know if you disagree with this. -Matttest (talk) 07:21, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
 * As advised, I do not support this wiki simply being made a reception wiki. Mainspace is for advice. Please refrain from writing low quality 'good vs bad dotpoint' articles, but instead offer meaningful and actionable advice which deals with reception of products and services only insofar as it is necessary to give context to practical advice. Please see PrivacyWiki:Guiding Principles, point 1. 21x (talk) 12:11, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
 * @21x: If you don’t want good/bad qualities articles be in the mainspace, I think the guides can be in the mainspace (already explained the reason above, briefly it’s because the scope overlaps, and all the current mainspace article like Android is actually a guide like “Mitigation guide for Android”), the concept remains, and the good/bad qualities articles be moved to a new namespace, that can be the Service:/Provider: namespace. If we can get consensus here regarding this, I believe it will let new users to have a better understanding to contribute. Matttest (talk) 06:59, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * @Matttest Seems to me that this could work only if each service had a privacy assessment done on them, like pros and cons, and the outcome displayed as a summary, similar to how review sites usually have the grade section and brief pros vs cons list (example).
 * Maybe if there was an Article/Assessment subpage for every company which had the pros and cons, including a rating such as "Recommended", "Use if you must", "Avoid" which could then be transcluded into the infobox.
 * But, this has to be very brief, and must not be the main body of the article, but merely a glanceable way to gather facts on the service, without digging into the main article. 21x (talk) 20:36, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
 * We shouldn’t give ratings to a provider, as (I) different users have different needs, and we shouldn’t decide for them; (ii) users may mistakenly think that the editors of this wiki are affiliated with a specific provider. This is absolutely different from advices to achieve better privacy - the function of the mainspace. That’s the reason why I suggest to have a new namespace, and to delete the alternative and recommended namespace. Perhaps you can give me a reason why you opposed to such a change? I am currently considering to create a new wiki on my own for listing the good and bad qualities of a provider if the proposal isn’t accepted. Matttest (talk) 07:38, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I do not see the difference between having an opinionated pros/cons article vs having some sort of assessment page and offering a summery. This wiki is envisioned as being a privacy champion, and thus it is welcome for editors to champion software and services that are privacy preserving. This is what you propose to do with pros/cons article, which is fine.
 * However, I oppose reception wiki type articles on quality grounds. The way I see it, simply listing pros/cons is not compelling or useful content. This wiki is attempting to be an educational resource with a pro-privacy slant, not just an opinion/reception wiki.
 * Regarding forking or starting your own wiki, you're most welcome to do so as long as you follow the licence, see PrivacyWiki:Forking. I've gone ahead and refreshed the XML database backup for you, so it contains all the changes up to the moment this is written. See Special:DataDump. 21x (talk) 17:13, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I am not going to fork any pages here, but instead starting reception articles (good and bad quality) articles on a new wiki. I will guide the beginners who are unfamiliar with the privacy concept to this wiki, noted on the Main Page, as I believe forking other’s work makes no sense and did not worth looking into.
 * Regarding your invitation for me to write more meaningful content here to guide the beginners, I am actually not that interested in teaching readers basic stuffs as they should already aware of by reading some other blogs on the internet. My point is to make inspirational views and facts, such as ProtonMail, which currently there are lots of biased facts from affiliates and tons of users are being trapped by using the service. Matttest (talk) 08:24, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
 * It seems like we have a difference of vision then. Good luck with the reception stuff, and if we ever get to the point where we do those assessment pages that I mentioned, we might incorporate some of your work, provided that the licences are compatible. 21x (talk) 20:35, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Guide namespace merging to the mainspace
Since this is different from creating a new provider: namespace (which is proposed above), I am proposing here to merge the Guide: namespace to Mainspace. The current existing mainspace articles are actually all Guides. The Android article, is nothing different from a guide like “Mitigation guide for Android”. The Passwords article, on the other hand, is just like a guide like “Guide to secure your account”. For the current guides, like Guide:Resisting technological domestic abuse, is just the same as the mainspace articles. As of now, I failed to see that how can an article exist only with advice. That’s why I proposed to a change like this - let all guides be in the mainspace and rename articles like Android and Passwords to a guide name.

Before opposing, please state the reason why, but not quoting existing policies and oppose this because of that, as that policy is what I am proposing to change. -Matttest (talk) 08:02, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
 * You just moved Adblocking to Guides, and now you want to move guides back into mainspace?
 * Please read the again. Mainspace is for broad coverage of software, companies, services and technologies. For example, Android, Google, Apple, and VPN. It's broad practical advice relating to this specific subject. Guides are for narrow topics that need to be comprehensively covered, tying together information from multiple mainspace article. For example, Guide:Resisting technological domestic abuse is about any advice that helps people resist family/partner surveillance. The guide discusses things like passwords and smartphone privacy because tying these two topics together would not be appropriate on mainspace article for either Android/iOS or Passwords. To put it another way, Android article should be useful to everyone who owns an Android device, the guide on technologically enabled domestic abuse only to those who face such abuse.
 * I think this is more useful to a reader since they can choose a topic and get a good overview of practical advice, starting with easy wins, and moving on up to more complex stuff. Where they have narrower niche needs, they can then use a guide specifically written for that situation.
 * We can potentially talk about moving Passwords to guide namespace, but merging mainspace and Guides I am opposed to.


 * I would invite you to actually participate in the wiki and write meaningful content before trying to reshape the wiki in your own image. I am open to feedback, and consensus-based changes to policy; I am not open to fundamentally changing the aims and direction of this wiki.21x (talk) 17:47, 26 July 2022 (UTC)