Re: [Wikimedia-l] Superprotect user right, Coming to a wiki near you
Hoi, I am getting so pissed off. Let us be realistic. The user experience sucks ... It sucks big time and even though the community is comfortable with it, it impedes the use by the people we do it all for. They are the READERS.. they are not the editors and the least this is done for are the people who are so indignant because their experience changes. When you look at the last year, the biggest changes are driven by the development for mobiles. The projections make it plain this is where our customers will be. The existing Wikipedia with its monobook and what have you skin will not be seen, used or be relevant to them. Our traffic is transitioning to mobile. Editing starts to happen on mobile and if it is not clear to the community that future development will be in this direction they live under a rock or they are in denial. Have a look at a Commons page on a mobile.. It is beyond bad and beyond useful. With the Multimedia viewer it becomes useful. (NB there are things in there that are brain dead but that is a different story) WAKE UP. Our world is changing. Trying to shame the WMF development in a different direction is counter productive, ill considered and even destructive. When you are the community, and when this is new to you, I hope you will sit back for a moment and consider this. When this does not make a difference to you, there is always the right of departure. In my brutal opinion we have no option but to move towards a more mobile centred appreciation. The alternative is stagnation and irrelevance. That does not need to happen when we accept that the world changes around us. Thanks, GerardM On 14 August 2014 17:28, Tim Davenport shoehu...@gmail.com wrote: Re: Erik Möller's remark: In general, though, let's talk. The overarching principle we're not going to budge on is that this process is really not acceptable: 1) The UI changes 2) A subset of users is upset and organizes a poll/vote 3) The poll/vote closes with a request to undo said UI Change and a request is filed 4) WMF offers compromise or says no 5) A local hack is used to undo said UI change That's no way to develop software, and that's no way to work together = I could spend 10,000 words on this. I'll try to keep it (comparatively) short. The reason this dysfunctional situation develops, Erik, is because there are no steps A, B, C, D, E, F, and G preceding #1 on the list. As things currently stand, this is the way the software development process at WMF seems to me to work: * Engineers collecting paychecks obviously need something to do. * Someone comes up with a bright idea that sounds good on paper. * Engineers decide to make that idea a reality and start work. * Inadequately tested software, sometimes of dubious utility, is unilaterally imposed on volunteers. * If new software is problematic enough, volunteers revolt by any means necessary. * WMF forces changes down throat of volunteers by any means necessary. This is truly no way to develop software and no way to work together. - Here is the way the process SHOULD begin: * WMF staffers, plural, identify by user names/IP addresses the 10,000 or so very active volunteers across all projects and database them. * WMF staffers further divide this group into coherent types: content writers, gnome-type copy editors, structural adapters (template people, bot operators, etc.), quality control workers (NPP, AfD), vandal fighters, behavioral administrators (ArbCom, Ani, the various Admin pages), and drone bees who do nothing but Facebook-style drama mongering. Multiple categories may apply to single individuals and this list is not necessarily exhaustive. * Once identified, WMF staffers frequently and regularly poll very active users in each category about WHAT THEY NEED. Different surveys for different volunteer types. * Software development starts ONLY when a real need is identified. * Software should be introduced on En-WP, De-WP, or Commons ONLY when it is Alpha-grade, debugged and ready to roll. (Test things on the smaller Wikis first). - Moreover, there should be some polling mechanism to summarize and analyze what the 500 million or whatever readers worldwide feel that they like and feel they are missing. User experience changes with primary impact on readers rather than volunteers (such as MediaViewer) should be made with them in mind first and foremost; editing and structural tools should be made to actually assist the active volunteers, not created on a whim. Sometimes the needs of the Readers and the needs of the Volunteers are different, let us frankly say. In no case should WMF assume the views and criticism of the latter are insignificant or wrong simply because 500,000,000 10,000. Remember this because according to the same logic: 10,000 240. - We all agree that we need a bigger pool of very active volunteers. Most readers are never going to be very
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Superprotect user right, Coming to a wiki near you
Gerard, I believe that the disputes about MediaViewer are mostly about the desktop platform's version, as most editors use the desktop platform to edit. In general terms, I have yet to hear someone say that the Mobile platform is a low development priority. I am familiar with Mobile-l. Mobile development has a long road ahead of it but I feel Mobile is overall moving in the right direction. In my experience, Mobile development has good interpersonal harmony among participants, and everyone is hoping to convert a portion of mobile app users to new contributors. Pine On Aug 14, 2014 11:58 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.com wrote: Hoi, I am getting so pissed off. Let us be realistic. The user experience sucks ... It sucks big time and even though the community is comfortable with it, it impedes the use by the people we do it all for. They are the READERS.. they are not the editors and the least this is done for are the people who are so indignant because their experience changes. When you look at the last year, the biggest changes are driven by the development for mobiles. The projections make it plain this is where our customers will be. The existing Wikipedia with its monobook and what have you skin will not be seen, used or be relevant to them. Our traffic is transitioning to mobile. Editing starts to happen on mobile and if it is not clear to the community that future development will be in this direction they live under a rock or they are in denial. Have a look at a Commons page on a mobile.. It is beyond bad and beyond useful. With the Multimedia viewer it becomes useful. (NB there are things in there that are brain dead but that is a different story) WAKE UP. Our world is changing. Trying to shame the WMF development in a different direction is counter productive, ill considered and even destructive. When you are the community, and when this is new to you, I hope you will sit back for a moment and consider this. When this does not make a difference to you, there is always the right of departure. In my brutal opinion we have no option but to move towards a more mobile centred appreciation. The alternative is stagnation and irrelevance. That does not need to happen when we accept that the world changes around us. Thanks, GerardM On 14 August 2014 17:28, Tim Davenport shoehu...@gmail.com wrote: Re: Erik Möller's remark: In general, though, let's talk. The overarching principle we're not going to budge on is that this process is really not acceptable: 1) The UI changes 2) A subset of users is upset and organizes a poll/vote 3) The poll/vote closes with a request to undo said UI Change and a request is filed 4) WMF offers compromise or says no 5) A local hack is used to undo said UI change That's no way to develop software, and that's no way to work together = I could spend 10,000 words on this. I'll try to keep it (comparatively) short. The reason this dysfunctional situation develops, Erik, is because there are no steps A, B, C, D, E, F, and G preceding #1 on the list. As things currently stand, this is the way the software development process at WMF seems to me to work: * Engineers collecting paychecks obviously need something to do. * Someone comes up with a bright idea that sounds good on paper. * Engineers decide to make that idea a reality and start work. * Inadequately tested software, sometimes of dubious utility, is unilaterally imposed on volunteers. * If new software is problematic enough, volunteers revolt by any means necessary. * WMF forces changes down throat of volunteers by any means necessary. This is truly no way to develop software and no way to work together. - Here is the way the process SHOULD begin: * WMF staffers, plural, identify by user names/IP addresses the 10,000 or so very active volunteers across all projects and database them. * WMF staffers further divide this group into coherent types: content writers, gnome-type copy editors, structural adapters (template people, bot operators, etc.), quality control workers (NPP, AfD), vandal fighters, behavioral administrators (ArbCom, Ani, the various Admin pages), and drone bees who do nothing but Facebook-style drama mongering. Multiple categories may apply to single individuals and this list is not necessarily exhaustive. * Once identified, WMF staffers frequently and regularly poll very active users in each category about WHAT THEY NEED. Different surveys for different volunteer types. * Software development starts ONLY when a real need is identified. * Software should be introduced on En-WP, De-WP, or Commons ONLY when it is Alpha-grade, debugged and ready to roll. (Test things on the smaller Wikis first). - Moreover, there should be some polling mechanism to summarize and analyze what the 500 million or whatever
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikitech-l] Superprotect user right, Comming to a wiki near you
On Thu, Aug 14, 2014 at 11:30 PM, Chris Keating chriskeatingw...@gmail.com wrote: how should this be solved? To me it's saying that no matter who is informed, the WMF can never expect that their work won't be overruled. That is problematic (regardless of who has the final authority) A first step would be to abide to the principles of Open Process http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/OpenProcess Namely: - Transparency - all communications and decisions are public and archived, so anyone interested may get all information - No time constraints - all decisions (democratic or not) are suggested or announced a reasonable timespan before they become effective. So there is still time for discussion and even last minute intervention. - Participation - in principle (this opens the chance for restrictions in case of problems) anyone is welcome to participate (discussions, decisions *and* work) - * Reflection and reversibility - any decision may be reversed if the results are not as expected. * - Tolerance - any system or process should have the flexibility in the application of its - necessary - rules - Sharing and collaborating on visible and accessible goals and resources Then a second step would be to engage the community, not only as something that has to be managed, but as an equal partner that has to take up responsibilities and who is able to affect decisions. This of course means a paradigm shift moving away from community liaisons and into the realm of helping contributors to constitute themselves enabling them to take up a shared ownership role without the need of a formal organization. I don't think the wmf is entirely responsible for making this happen, there is also have to be a general will to embody such a spirit without resorting to staff, hierarchies, or votes. The problem is that most of us live in a world that doesn't work this way, and the attached structural flaws are imported, when there is no need to. Anyhow, that should be something to speak about when the tensions have been defused. Cheers, Micru ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Superprotect user right, Coming to a wiki near you
Hoi, I am afraid you do not get the point. The point is that the desktop as we know it is our history. It is like the Dodo; something that is best experienced in the museum to be replaced by something contemporary in the real world. The development of a single UI is what you should consider and expect and it should support any platform. What the Mediaviewer does is move us away from a cluttered unintelligible page of data junk for those who are not initiated. It is a step towards something intelligible that may be supported on any platform. Yes, what you hear is people whining about their desktop experience. They want to keep things as it is and, any argument, any approach is fine as far as they are concerned. Our desktop experience has improved somewhat over the years but it is all the ballast of the past that is keeping us back. It is all the byzantine embellishments that are so important to have. But really, when people like myself refuse to edit Wikipedia because the experience is so bad you have lost with me more than is justified by insisting on the status quo. Ask yourself, who do we do it for and who should be able to edit. FYI I was involved in Wikipedia before there was a Wikimania. Thanks, GerardM On 15 August 2014 10:02, Pine W wiki.p...@gmail.com wrote: Gerard, I believe that the disputes about MediaViewer are mostly about the desktop platform's version, as most editors use the desktop platform to edit. In general terms, I have yet to hear someone say that the Mobile platform is a low development priority. I am familiar with Mobile-l. Mobile development has a long road ahead of it but I feel Mobile is overall moving in the right direction. In my experience, Mobile development has good interpersonal harmony among participants, and everyone is hoping to convert a portion of mobile app users to new contributors. Pine On Aug 14, 2014 11:58 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.com wrote: Hoi, I am getting so pissed off. Let us be realistic. The user experience sucks ... It sucks big time and even though the community is comfortable with it, it impedes the use by the people we do it all for. They are the READERS.. they are not the editors and the least this is done for are the people who are so indignant because their experience changes. When you look at the last year, the biggest changes are driven by the development for mobiles. The projections make it plain this is where our customers will be. The existing Wikipedia with its monobook and what have you skin will not be seen, used or be relevant to them. Our traffic is transitioning to mobile. Editing starts to happen on mobile and if it is not clear to the community that future development will be in this direction they live under a rock or they are in denial. Have a look at a Commons page on a mobile.. It is beyond bad and beyond useful. With the Multimedia viewer it becomes useful. (NB there are things in there that are brain dead but that is a different story) WAKE UP. Our world is changing. Trying to shame the WMF development in a different direction is counter productive, ill considered and even destructive. When you are the community, and when this is new to you, I hope you will sit back for a moment and consider this. When this does not make a difference to you, there is always the right of departure. In my brutal opinion we have no option but to move towards a more mobile centred appreciation. The alternative is stagnation and irrelevance. That does not need to happen when we accept that the world changes around us. Thanks, GerardM On 14 August 2014 17:28, Tim Davenport shoehu...@gmail.com wrote: Re: Erik Möller's remark: In general, though, let's talk. The overarching principle we're not going to budge on is that this process is really not acceptable: 1) The UI changes 2) A subset of users is upset and organizes a poll/vote 3) The poll/vote closes with a request to undo said UI Change and a request is filed 4) WMF offers compromise or says no 5) A local hack is used to undo said UI change That's no way to develop software, and that's no way to work together = I could spend 10,000 words on this. I'll try to keep it (comparatively) short. The reason this dysfunctional situation develops, Erik, is because there are no steps A, B, C, D, E, F, and G preceding #1 on the list. As things currently stand, this is the way the software development process at WMF seems to me to work: * Engineers collecting paychecks obviously need something to do. * Someone comes up with a bright idea that sounds good on paper. * Engineers decide to make that idea a reality and start work. * Inadequately tested software, sometimes of dubious utility, is unilaterally imposed on volunteers. * If new software is problematic enough, volunteers
Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikitech-l] Superprotect user right, Comming to a wiki near you
Hoi, David, who is the community and how do you get members of the community recognise and respect the decisions it does not like that are taken on their behalf by its representatives. We do not have one community, we have many. The interests people aim for are diverse and all too often contradictory.. Really, in the past one part of the community insisted that it ALWAYS requires to be able to have the deciding influence for its project.. That clearly pains the picture for me. Thanks, GerardM On 15 August 2014 10:17, David Cuenca dacu...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Aug 14, 2014 at 11:30 PM, Chris Keating chriskeatingw...@gmail.com wrote: how should this be solved? To me it's saying that no matter who is informed, the WMF can never expect that their work won't be overruled. That is problematic (regardless of who has the final authority) A first step would be to abide to the principles of Open Process http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/OpenProcess Namely: - Transparency - all communications and decisions are public and archived, so anyone interested may get all information - No time constraints - all decisions (democratic or not) are suggested or announced a reasonable timespan before they become effective. So there is still time for discussion and even last minute intervention. - Participation - in principle (this opens the chance for restrictions in case of problems) anyone is welcome to participate (discussions, decisions *and* work) - * Reflection and reversibility - any decision may be reversed if the results are not as expected. * - Tolerance - any system or process should have the flexibility in the application of its - necessary - rules - Sharing and collaborating on visible and accessible goals and resources Then a second step would be to engage the community, not only as something that has to be managed, but as an equal partner that has to take up responsibilities and who is able to affect decisions. This of course means a paradigm shift moving away from community liaisons and into the realm of helping contributors to constitute themselves enabling them to take up a shared ownership role without the need of a formal organization. I don't think the wmf is entirely responsible for making this happen, there is also have to be a general will to embody such a spirit without resorting to staff, hierarchies, or votes. The problem is that most of us live in a world that doesn't work this way, and the attached structural flaws are imported, when there is no need to. Anyhow, that should be something to speak about when the tensions have been defused. Cheers, Micru ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Superprotect user right, Coming to a wiki near you
Gerard, I don't think anyone is insisting on the status quo. But we do expect that improvements be, well, better than what they improve. Breaking attribution for our media files, or hiding it by requiring a click, is not an improvement. The people who created and uploaded that media deserve their credit, and potential reusers need to see the license at once. That is not junk. Developing for mobile is nice and should continue, but desktop is far from dead. I don't even try to edit from mobile; I want my real keyboard and monitor, not the crappy on screen one and 3 display. What is suitable for desktop often isn't for mobile. One size fits all won't work there, nor will forget the desktop users. We'll have plenty of both for the foreseeable future. On Aug 15, 2014 3:18 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.com wrote: Hoi, I am afraid you do not get the point. The point is that the desktop as we know it is our history. It is like the Dodo; something that is best experienced in the museum to be replaced by something contemporary in the real world. The development of a single UI is what you should consider and expect and it should support any platform. What the Mediaviewer does is move us away from a cluttered unintelligible page of data junk for those who are not initiated. It is a step towards something intelligible that may be supported on any platform. Yes, what you hear is people whining about their desktop experience. They want to keep things as it is and, any argument, any approach is fine as far as they are concerned. Our desktop experience has improved somewhat over the years but it is all the ballast of the past that is keeping us back. It is all the byzantine embellishments that are so important to have. But really, when people like myself refuse to edit Wikipedia because the experience is so bad you have lost with me more than is justified by insisting on the status quo. Ask yourself, who do we do it for and who should be able to edit. FYI I was involved in Wikipedia before there was a Wikimania. Thanks, GerardM On 15 August 2014 10:02, Pine W wiki.p...@gmail.com wrote: Gerard, I believe that the disputes about MediaViewer are mostly about the desktop platform's version, as most editors use the desktop platform to edit. In general terms, I have yet to hear someone say that the Mobile platform is a low development priority. I am familiar with Mobile-l. Mobile development has a long road ahead of it but I feel Mobile is overall moving in the right direction. In my experience, Mobile development has good interpersonal harmony among participants, and everyone is hoping to convert a portion of mobile app users to new contributors. Pine On Aug 14, 2014 11:58 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.com wrote: Hoi, I am getting so pissed off. Let us be realistic. The user experience sucks ... It sucks big time and even though the community is comfortable with it, it impedes the use by the people we do it all for. They are the READERS.. they are not the editors and the least this is done for are the people who are so indignant because their experience changes. When you look at the last year, the biggest changes are driven by the development for mobiles. The projections make it plain this is where our customers will be. The existing Wikipedia with its monobook and what have you skin will not be seen, used or be relevant to them. Our traffic is transitioning to mobile. Editing starts to happen on mobile and if it is not clear to the community that future development will be in this direction they live under a rock or they are in denial. Have a look at a Commons page on a mobile.. It is beyond bad and beyond useful. With the Multimedia viewer it becomes useful. (NB there are things in there that are brain dead but that is a different story) WAKE UP. Our world is changing. Trying to shame the WMF development in a different direction is counter productive, ill considered and even destructive. When you are the community, and when this is new to you, I hope you will sit back for a moment and consider this. When this does not make a difference to you, there is always the right of departure. In my brutal opinion we have no option but to move towards a more mobile centred appreciation. The alternative is stagnation and irrelevance. That does not need to happen when we accept that the world changes around us. Thanks, GerardM On 14 August 2014 17:28, Tim Davenport shoehu...@gmail.com wrote: Re: Erik Möller's remark: In general, though, let's talk. The overarching principle we're not going to budge on is that this process is really not acceptable: 1) The UI changes 2) A subset of users is upset and organizes a poll/vote 3) The poll/vote closes with a request to undo said UI Change and
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Superprotect user right, Coming to a wiki near you
On 15 August 2014 06:08, Todd Allen toddmal...@gmail.com wrote: Developing for mobile is nice and should continue, but desktop is far from dead. I don't even try to edit from mobile; I want my real keyboard and monitor, not the crappy on screen one and 3 display. This is a false dilemma. The WMF does not have any plans to stop developing desktop features. On the contrary, the VisualEditor team recently changed scope to be the Editing team in part so that the scope of their team also included maintaining the wikitext editor on desktop. Dan -- Dan Garry Associate Product Manager, Mobile Apps Wikimedia Foundation ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
