Forwarding this to wikimedia-l as it doesn't seem to be very technical in nature, but definitely seems worthy of discussion.
MZMcBride Danny Horn wrote: >For a while now, the Collaboration team has been working on Flow, the >structured discussion system. I want to let you know about some changes in >that long-term plan. > >While initial announcements about Flow said that it would be a universal >replacement for talk pages, the features that were ultimately built into >Flow were specifically forum-style group discussion tools. But article and >project talk pages are used for a number of important and complex >processes that those tools aren't able to handle, making Flow unsuitable >for deployment on those kinds of pages. > >To better address the needs of our core contributors, we're now focusing >our strategy on the curation, collaboration, and admin processes that take >place on a variety of pages. Many of these processes use complex >workarounds -- templates, categories, transclusions, and lots of >instructions -- that turn blank wikitext talk pages into structured >workflows. There are gadgets and user scripts on the larger wikis to help >with some of these workflows, but these tools aren't standardized or >universally available. > >As these workflows grow in complexity, they become more difficult for the >next generation of editors to learn and use. This has increased the >workload on the people who maintain those systems today. Complex workflows >are also difficult to adapt to other languages, because a wiki with >thousands of articles may not need the kind of complexity that comes with >managing a wiki with millions of articles. We've talked about this kind of >structured workflow support at Wikimania, in user research sessions, and >on wikis. It's an important area that needs a lot of discussion, >exploration, and work. > >Starting in October, Flow will not be in active development, as we shift >the team's focus to these other priorities. We'll be helping core >contributors reduce the stress of an ever-growing workload, and helping >the next generation of contributors participate in those processes. >Further development on these projects will be driven by the needs >expressed by wiki communities. > >Flow will be maintained and supported, and communities that are excited >about Flow discussions will be able to use it. There are places where the >discussion features are working well, with communities that are >enthusiastic about them: on user talk pages, help pages, and forum/village >pump-style discussion spaces. By the end of September, we'll have an >opt-in Beta feature available to communities that want it, allowing users >to enable Flow on their own user talk pages. > >I'm sure people will want to know more about these projects, and we're >looking forward to those conversations. We'll be reaching out for lots of >input and feedback over the coming months. > >Danny Horn >Collaboration team, PM _______________________________________________ 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>
