On 8 April 2013 12:51, Brad Jorsch <bjor...@wikimedia.org> wrote: > On Mon, Apr 8, 2013 at 12:16 PM, Risker <risker...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > I do not think it is particularly obvious outside of our project the way > > that Wikidata is being "weaponized" as the reason for attempting to force > > changes in local consensus about infoboxes (their existence and content) > > with respect to specific article categories or even individual articles. > > It's not obvious within the project either, at least for someone like > me who hasn't been following the endless arguments over whether some > WikiProject should be able to decide not to use infoboxes on "their" > articles and whether they're ganging up to prevent any local consensus > to use infoboxes on "their" articles, etc, etc, etc. > > Personally, I don't consider that people making spurious arguments > based on the existence of wikidata is a problem with the planned > wikidata phase 2 deployment. >
Why do you think those arguments are spurious? Just because you don't agree with them doesn't make them spurious. Those articles belong a lot more to the editors of each of the Wikipedias than they do to Wikidata, or Wikimedia, that's for certain. It's disturbing that even at the same time as the engineering and operations departments are working so hard to professionalize their work, to bring themselves up to industry standards, to properly staff themselves with people who understand not just the technical side, but also the content side - that there remains this cowboy attitude toward applying poorly developed software onto huge sites knowing full well that the software create significant community disruption. This isn't a little backwater website anymore, and it should never be the subject of a major test without the active engagement of those who are going to be the test subjects. Wiki design 101 is that nobody gets sent to another page/website/etc to edit content on the Wikipedia. (Even clicking on an image that is held on Commons takes people to a Wikipedia page for the image, and then gives them the choice to go to Commons.) This software is not ready for deployment; everyone here knows it. This is now just pride taking the place of common sense. (And no, David, it's not bikeshedding.) Figure out why the content itself is being affected, instead of creating a new namespace that will hold all this data: wikidata, authority control data, H-cards, V-cards, and all the other miscellaneous stuff that has been applied to articles. This is not a technical problem to be solved. It is at its core a philosophical matter to be grappled with, project by project. Learn some lessons from the folks down the hall in Fundraising - who have figured out how to fully fund all of these projects with the minimal amount of disruption to the content and the editorial process. Figure out how to do that, and you'll have a winner. Risker/Anne _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
