[Wikitech-l] Please use sitenotice when a new version of software is deployed

2013-12-05 Thread Alex Brollo
Users are very confused and worried any time a new version of wiki software
is launched and tested, and some major or minor bug comes invariably out.

 A clear message using central sitenotice, with links to doc pages listing
the changes at different levels of detail and to their talk pages to
discuss them and to alert for bugs, is mandatory IMHO. Tech news are
largely insufficient; evidence of work in progress should be clearly
visible into all pages of interested projects. It's a basic matter of
Wikilove.

Alex
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Re: [Wikitech-l] Please use sitenotice when a new version of software is deployed

2013-12-05 Thread K. Peachey
On Thu, Dec 5, 2013 at 8:28 PM, Alex Brollo alex.bro...@gmail.com wrote:

 Users are very confused and worried any time a new version of wiki software
 is launched and tested, and some major or minor bug comes invariably out.

  A clear message using central sitenotice, with links to doc pages listing
 the changes at different levels of detail and to their talk pages to
 discuss them and to alert for bugs, is mandatory IMHO. Tech news are
 largely insufficient; evidence of work in progress should be clearly
 visible into all pages of interested projects. It's a basic matter of
 Wikilove.



Every two weeks for major stuff?, Apart from Sitenotices being disruptive
and stupid, And people will just start to get that used to them that they
won't even notice (or worse, use blocking technologies to get rid of them).
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Re: [Wikitech-l] Please use sitenotice when a new version of software is deployed

2013-12-05 Thread Petr Bena
Hi,

What about subscribing to this list instead? I think that users who
want to see updates, should use relevant information channels, rather
than forcing everyone to see notices they may not be interested in.

On Thu, Dec 5, 2013 at 11:28 AM, Alex Brollo alex.bro...@gmail.com wrote:
 Users are very confused and worried any time a new version of wiki software
 is launched and tested, and some major or minor bug comes invariably out.

  A clear message using central sitenotice, with links to doc pages listing
 the changes at different levels of detail and to their talk pages to
 discuss them and to alert for bugs, is mandatory IMHO. Tech news are
 largely insufficient; evidence of work in progress should be clearly
 visible into all pages of interested projects. It's a basic matter of
 Wikilove.

 Alex
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Re: [Wikitech-l] Please use sitenotice when a new version of software is deployed

2013-12-05 Thread Amir Ladsgroup
I disagree with Alex, usually people don't give a damn about new
deployments. Just geeks and technical people (poeple who work on templates,
bots, etc.) care about these stuff

Best


On Thu, Dec 5, 2013 at 2:04 PM, Petr Bena benap...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hi,

 What about subscribing to this list instead? I think that users who
 want to see updates, should use relevant information channels, rather
 than forcing everyone to see notices they may not be interested in.

 On Thu, Dec 5, 2013 at 11:28 AM, Alex Brollo alex.bro...@gmail.com
 wrote:
  Users are very confused and worried any time a new version of wiki
 software
  is launched and tested, and some major or minor bug comes invariably out.
 
   A clear message using central sitenotice, with links to doc pages
 listing
  the changes at different levels of detail and to their talk pages to
  discuss them and to alert for bugs, is mandatory IMHO. Tech news are
  largely insufficient; evidence of work in progress should be clearly
  visible into all pages of interested projects. It's a basic matter of
  Wikilove.
 
  Alex
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Re: [Wikitech-l] Please use sitenotice when a new version of software is deployed

2013-12-05 Thread Petr Bena
I disagree that sitenotices are stupid or disruptive. It's a good way
to inform users about really important stuff, which unfortunatelly is
sometimes misused for something irrelevant. However this way everyone
can be informed when needed and that's good. Using this for update
information is, of course, not a best solution.

On Thu, Dec 5, 2013 at 11:33 AM, K. Peachey p858sn...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Thu, Dec 5, 2013 at 8:28 PM, Alex Brollo alex.bro...@gmail.com wrote:

 Users are very confused and worried any time a new version of wiki software
 is launched and tested, and some major or minor bug comes invariably out.

  A clear message using central sitenotice, with links to doc pages listing
 the changes at different levels of detail and to their talk pages to
 discuss them and to alert for bugs, is mandatory IMHO. Tech news are
 largely insufficient; evidence of work in progress should be clearly
 visible into all pages of interested projects. It's a basic matter of
 Wikilove.



 Every two weeks for major stuff?, Apart from Sitenotices being disruptive
 and stupid, And people will just start to get that used to them that they
 won't even notice (or worse, use blocking technologies to get rid of them).
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Re: [Wikitech-l] Please use sitenotice when a new version of software is deployed

2013-12-05 Thread Nikola Smolenski

On 05.12.2013. 11:37, Petr Bena wrote:

I disagree that sitenotices are stupid or disruptive. It's a good way
to inform users about really important stuff, which unfortunatelly is
sometimes misused for something irrelevant. However this way everyone
can be informed when needed and that's good. Using this for update
information is, of course, not a best solution.


Maybe people could see information about software update when they first 
time log in after the update? Perhaps even better: in site notifications?


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Re: [Wikitech-l] Please use sitenotice when a new version of software is deployed

2013-12-05 Thread Andre Klapper
On Thu, 2013-12-05 at 11:28 +0100, Alex Brollo wrote:
 Users are very confused and worried any time a new version of wiki software
 is launched and tested, and some major or minor bug comes invariably out.

So a constant Be confused and worried, every Thursday! site notice on
Wikipedias (Tuesday for other production sites [1]) would help? ;)

andre

[1] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.23/Roadmap
-- 
Andre Klapper | Wikimedia Bugwrangler
http://blogs.gnome.org/aklapper/


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Re: [Wikitech-l] Please use sitenotice when a new version of software is deployed

2013-12-05 Thread Amir E. Aharoni
Sitenotice would be an exaggeration. Google and Facebook and millions of
other sites update their software, probably even more frequently than we
do, and without any big notifications to all users every week.

People who consider themselves capable of testing new features should just
sign up to this mailing list. If the traffic here is too high or the
content too technical, I strongly recommend the wikitech-ambassadords,
which was started precisely with this in mind and is doing the job pretty
well :
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-ambassadors

My dream scenario would be to do deployments similarly to the way Mozilla
and Google release versions of their browsers - beta and release. Logged-in
users who opt in would be connected to a newer version of MediaWiki that
will be deployed to everybody the following week. Same URL, same account,
same preferences, same content - just different software. Currently with
the beta labs we don't have the same account and the same content, so it's
not as useful for crowd-sourcing the testing.


--
Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
http://aharoni.wordpress.com
‪“We're living in pieces,
I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore‬


2013/12/5 Alex Brollo alex.bro...@gmail.com

 Users are very confused and worried any time a new version of wiki software
 is launched and tested, and some major or minor bug comes invariably out.

  A clear message using central sitenotice, with links to doc pages listing
 the changes at different levels of detail and to their talk pages to
 discuss them and to alert for bugs, is mandatory IMHO. Tech news are
 largely insufficient; evidence of work in progress should be clearly
 visible into all pages of interested projects. It's a basic matter of
 Wikilove.

 Alex
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[Wikitech-l] Uninstalling hooks for tests?

2013-12-05 Thread Marcin Cieslak
I am not very happy about this but we came to the case
where it might be useful to explicitly uninstall some
hook(s) for out unit tests.
 
You might want to checkout MediaWikiTestCase::uninstallHook

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/99349/

I am not happy about blurring differences between unit
and integration testing, but breaking core with extensions
and vice versa is sometimes useful.

//Saper


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Re: [Wikitech-l] Please use sitenotice when a new version of software is deployed

2013-12-05 Thread Antoine Musso
Le 05/12/13 11:28, Alex Brollo a écrit :
 Users are very confused and worried any time a new version of wiki software
 is launched and tested, and some major or minor bug comes invariably out.
 
  A clear message using central sitenotice, with links to doc pages listing
 the changes at different levels of detail and to their talk pages to
 discuss them and to alert for bugs, is mandatory IMHO. Tech news are
 largely insufficient; evidence of work in progress should be clearly
 visible into all pages of interested projects. It's a basic matter of
 Wikilove.

Hello Alex,

The large majority of the 500 millions of users browsing our sites don't
care about software updates.  That is maybe appealing to a few thousands
user at most.  So I would prefer we do not annoy 9 times the population
of France :-D



Those interested can look at:

WMF deployment calendar:
  https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Deployment

Roadmap of MediaWiki core deployments:
  https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.23/Roadmap

Whenever a new version is pushed, a script generate an exhaustive list
of changes being deployed at:
  https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_1.23/wmf5

The link being reachable from the Roadmap page above.


Finally there is the very useful wikitech-ambassadors mailing list which
is used to reach out to the community whenever a big new feature is
landing in (ie change of the search backend, OAuth, HTTPS ..).  That is
worth a read :-]

 https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-ambassadors


cheers,

-- 
Antoine hashar Musso


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Re: [Wikitech-l] Uninstalling hooks for tests?

2013-12-05 Thread Antoine Musso
Le 05/12/13 15:59, Antoine Musso a écrit :
 There is a GetHumanTimestamp() that let you override the method
 behaviour which is used by the cldr extension.

Was referring to GetHumanTimestamp *hook*. Sorry.


-- 
Antoine hashar Musso


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Re: [Wikitech-l] Uninstalling hooks for tests?

2013-12-05 Thread C. Scott Ananian
Yes, I needed to turn off visual editor because it was altering the
section header 'edit' text which was causing parser tests to fail.  I
fixed it like this: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/84436
  --scott

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Re: [Wikitech-l] Please use sitenotice when a new version of software is deployed

2013-12-05 Thread Bartosz Dziewoński

The sites are updated weekly, sometimes with additional deployments inbetween 
the scheduled ones. Constant sitenotice would be a bad idea.

I suggest you subscribe to https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News , which is 
an also weekly newsletter summarising new features and important fixed bugs 
every week, as well as providing links to the detailed change logs.

--
Matma Rex

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Re: [Wikitech-l] Please use sitenotice when a new version of software is deployed

2013-12-05 Thread Risker
On 5 December 2013 13:08, Bartosz Dziewoński matma@gmail.com wrote:

 The sites are updated weekly, sometimes with additional deployments
 inbetween the scheduled ones. Constant sitenotice would be a bad idea.

 I suggest you subscribe to https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News ,
 which is an also weekly newsletter summarising new features and important
 fixed bugs every week, as well as providing links to the detailed change
 logs.




Not a bad idea, although every time someone says xx needs to be
communicated better, someone else responds with there's a mailing list
for that!  So far, based on recommendations from *this* mailing list, I've
subscribed to half a dozen other lists that, generally speaking, didn't
give me any more information than I would have received here.  (Wikitech
Ambassadors?  Who's sending anything there? Is it useful anymore?)

Some streamlining of communication processes, and giving consideration to a
quick and straightforward process to reach information that can be done
directly from any WMF wiki, would be a really significant outreach to the
primary users.

Risker/Anne
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Re: [Wikitech-l] Please use sitenotice when a new version of software is deployed

2013-12-05 Thread Greg Grossmeier
quote name=Risker date=2013-12-05 time=13:55:42 -0500
 On 5 December 2013 13:08, Bartosz Dziewoński matma@gmail.com wrote:
 
  The sites are updated weekly, sometimes with additional deployments
  inbetween the scheduled ones. Constant sitenotice would be a bad idea.
 
  I suggest you subscribe to https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News ,
  which is an also weekly newsletter summarising new features and important
  fixed bugs every week, as well as providing links to the detailed change
  logs.
 
 
 
 
 Not a bad idea, although every time someone says xx needs to be
 communicated better, someone else responds with there's a mailing list
 for that!  So far, based on recommendations from *this* mailing list, I've
 subscribed to half a dozen other lists that, generally speaking, didn't
 give me any more information than I would have received here.  (Wikitech
 Ambassadors?  Who's sending anything there? Is it useful anymore?)

I am, weekly, of all planned deployments.

See:
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-ambassadors/2013-November/000499.html

Also, Chad/Nik do regularly for search updates that are happening.

It is far from a ghost town and was deemed useful they last time I asked
for feedback:
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-ambassadors/2013-August/000342.html

Greg

-- 
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| identi.ca: @gregA18D 1138 8E47 FAC8 1C7D |

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Re: [Wikitech-l] Please use sitenotice when a new version of software is deployed

2013-12-05 Thread Thomas Gries

 The sites are updated weekly, sometimes with additional deployments
 inbetween the scheduled ones. Constant sitenotice would be a bad idea.

 I suggest you subscribe to https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News ,

I suggest that MediaWiki uses Twitter to announce new MediaWiki versions
like - for example, PHP and ownCloud.


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Re: [Wikitech-l] Please use sitenotice when a new version of software is deployed

2013-12-05 Thread Quim Gil
On 12/05/2013 10:08 AM, Bartosz Dziewoński wrote:
 I suggest you subscribe to https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News
 , which is an also weekly newsletter summarising new features and
 important fixed bugs every week, as well as providing links to the
 detailed change logs.

Tech News, yeah!

I fully agree. Wikimedia users confused about anything tech related (but
interested enough to share his/her confusion) should be pointed to Tech
News.

If their tech interest continues to grow, through the Tech News they
will learn about other venues, like wikitech-ambassadors, this list or
whatever specialized mailing list or wiki pages they are interested about.

-- 
Quim Gil
Technical Contributor Coordinator @ Wikimedia Foundation
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Qgil

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[Wikitech-l] Redirecting obsolete mobile. and wap. domains

2013-12-05 Thread Yuri Astrakhan
This morning Faidon has deployed a
patchhttps://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/99394/1/templates/varnish/mobile-frontend.inc.vcl.erbto
redirect wap.and mobile. subdomains (see also this
patch https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/98058 for the apache side
handling), but later due to some cencerns the change has been reverted.

Are there any reasons for us to keep the current wap  mobile subdomains
handling, or everyone is ok with obsoleting them this way?

Thx
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Re: [Wikitech-l] Redirecting obsolete mobile. and wap. domains

2013-12-05 Thread Yuvi Panda
From the apps team: We don't use either of those, so don't worry about
the apps when killing them :)

-- 
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http://yuvi.in/blog

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Re: [Wikitech-l] Redirecting obsolete mobile. and wap. domains

2013-12-05 Thread Arthur Richards
On Thu, Dec 5, 2013 at 1:23 PM, Yuri Astrakhan yastrak...@wikimedia.orgwrote:

 This morning Faidon has deployed a
 patch
 https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/99394/1/templates/varnish/mobile-frontend.inc.vcl.erb
 to
 redirect wap.and mobile. subdomains (see also this
 patch https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/98058 for the apache side
 handling), but later due to some cencerns the change has been reverted.

 Are there any reasons for us to keep the current wap  mobile subdomains
 handling, or everyone is ok with obsoleting them this way?


Do we have any idea how much traffic is hitting the wap. and mobile.
subdomains right now?


-- 
Arthur Richards
Software Engineer, Mobile
[[User:Awjrichards]]
IRC: awjr
+1-415-839-6885 x6687
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Re: [Wikitech-l] Please use sitenotice when a new version of software is deployed

2013-12-05 Thread Brian Wolff
On 12/5/13, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote:
 On 5 December 2013 13:08, Bartosz Dziewoński matma@gmail.com wrote:

 The sites are updated weekly, sometimes with additional deployments
 inbetween the scheduled ones. Constant sitenotice would be a bad idea.

 I suggest you subscribe to https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News ,
 which is an also weekly newsletter summarising new features and important
 fixed bugs every week, as well as providing links to the detailed change
 logs.




 Not a bad idea, although every time someone says xx needs to be
 communicated better, someone else responds with there's a mailing list
 for that!  So far, based on recommendations from *this* mailing list, I've
 subscribed to half a dozen other lists that, generally speaking, didn't
 give me any more information than I would have received here.  (Wikitech
 Ambassadors?  Who's sending anything there? Is it useful anymore?)

 Some streamlining of communication processes, and giving consideration to a
 quick and straightforward process to reach information that can be done
 directly from any WMF wiki, would be a really significant outreach to the
 primary users.

 Risker/Anne
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 Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org
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As it stands we don't really summarize changes very well, which is a
prerequisite for telling people about changes. Occasionally changes
make it to Tech/news, but that seems sporadic. Posts to
wikitech-ambassadors is from what I've seen, really only for changes
we expect to cause problems, which is a small subset of the changes
people care about. Really the only in-depth list of changes coming to
a wiki near you is https://git.wikimedia.org/activity/ which includes
a lot of extra stuff, and is mostly far too technical for users to
reasonably understand.

I think the best way forward would be to more accurately describe
upcoming changes on tech/news. Once we actually have a user-readable
summary of actual changes that are happening, then we could have a
more reasonable discussion about how to get the information into
people who care's hands, without spamming people who don't. Of course
maintaining tech/news would probably require more effort being put
towards it then is currently done, which requires someone (or multiple
someones) to actually do so.

--bawolff

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Re: [Wikitech-l] Please use sitenotice when a new version of software is deployed

2013-12-05 Thread Seb35
Le Thu, 05 Dec 2013 19:08:15 +0100, Bartosz Dziewoński  
matma@gmail.com a écrit:
The sites are updated weekly, sometimes with additional deployments  
inbetween the scheduled ones. Constant sitenotice would be a bad idea.


I suggest you subscribe to https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News ,  
which is an also weekly newsletter summarising new features and  
important fixed bugs every week, as well as providing links to the  
detailed change logs.


As a (self-appointed) wikitech-ambassador, I post sometimes messages about  
new features on the frwiki village pump (after checking if it was not  
already announced), but I don’t see why posting all deployments (there are  
many by week from the various teams): users will not read them if there  
are too much, and it would become a heavy load for ambassadors.


@Alex Brollo: do you have some specific example/situation in mind behind  
your general question?


~ Seb35

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Re: [Wikitech-l] Please use sitenotice when a new version of software is deployed

2013-12-05 Thread Dan Garry
How about getting this stuff included in the Signpost? I think that's a
good medium for it.

There used to be a Technology report but I've not seen it for a while...

Dan


On 5 December 2013 10:28, Alex Brollo alex.bro...@gmail.com wrote:

 Users are very confused and worried any time a new version of wiki software
 is launched and tested, and some major or minor bug comes invariably out.

  A clear message using central sitenotice, with links to doc pages listing
 the changes at different levels of detail and to their talk pages to
 discuss them and to alert for bugs, is mandatory IMHO. Tech news are
 largely insufficient; evidence of work in progress should be clearly
 visible into all pages of interested projects. It's a basic matter of
 Wikilove.

 Alex
 ___
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 Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org
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-- 
Dan Garry
Associate Product Manager for Platform
Wikimedia Foundation
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Re: [Wikitech-l] Please use sitenotice when a new version of software is deployed

2013-12-05 Thread Nathan Larson
On Thu, Dec 5, 2013 at 5:00 PM, Dan Garry dga...@wikimedia.org wrote:

 How about getting this stuff included in the Signpost? I think that's a
 good medium for it.

 There used to be a Technology report but I've not seen it for a while...

 Dan


BRION, they called it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bugs,_Repairs,_and_Internal_Operational_NewsI
think they should bring it back.
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Re: [Wikitech-l] Please use sitenotice when a new version of software is deployed

2013-12-05 Thread Quim Gil
On 12/05/2013 01:22 PM, Brian Wolff wrote:
 On 12/5/13, Risker risker...@gmail.com wrote:
 Some streamlining of communication processes, and giving consideration to a
 quick and straightforward process to reach information that can be done
 directly from any WMF wiki, would be a really significant outreach to the
 primary users.

Yes, strongly agree.

 I think the best way forward would be to more accurately describe
 upcoming changes on tech/news. Once we actually have a user-readable
 summary of actual changes that are happening, then we could have a
 more reasonable discussion about how to get the information into
 people who care's hands, without spamming people who don't. Of course
 maintaining tech/news would probably require more effort being put
 towards it then is currently done, which requires someone (or multiple
 someones) to actually do so.

Indeed, to keep one source information up to date streaming regularly
the interesting bits from many other sources *requires hard work*. We
are lucky of having someone like Guillaume and other contributors
investing many hours on it (today mainly translators, writers are
welcome too).

In community contexts like ours, a good first step is to agree on a
streaming channel. This way everybody interested follows it, eventually
misses an important piece, eventually contributes it.

Once you have One Good Source (e.g. Tech News) it is a lot easier for
others (e.g. The Signpost) to follow and expand on specific stories
that, eventually if they add value, can be featured again in the One
Good Source.

Note also that Tech News not only reaches equally any Wikimedia user and
community page, it also can do it in the local language, as long as
someone provides a translation. The latest Tech News has been
distributed in 15 languages:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/Latest

A first conclusion of this thread could be an agreement to focus on Tech
News as the one good source to subscribe to, recommend, and contribute
to via content and translations. Many more steps will be needed to
fulfill its mission, but this would be a very useful next step.

What do you think?

-- 
Quim Gil
Technical Contributor Coordinator @ Wikimedia Foundation
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Qgil

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Re: [Wikitech-l] Please use sitenotice when a new version of software is deployed

2013-12-05 Thread Bartosz Dziewoński

On Thu, 05 Dec 2013 23:00:04 +0100, Dan Garry dga...@wikimedia.org wrote:


How about getting this stuff included in the Signpost? I think that's a
good medium for it.


Signpost is English-specific, Wikipedia-specific and English-Wikipedia-specific.

--
Matma Rex

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Re: [Wikitech-l] Please use sitenotice when a new version of software is deployed

2013-12-05 Thread Happy Melon
On 5 December 2013 23:36, Bartosz Dziewoński matma@gmail.com wrote:

 On Thu, 05 Dec 2013 23:00:04 +0100, Dan Garry dga...@wikimedia.org
 wrote:

  How about getting this stuff included in the Signpost? I think that's a
 good medium for it.


 Signpost is English-specific, Wikipedia-specific and
 English-Wikipedia-specific.



But let's be honest; the disproportionate majority of user discontent is
enwiki-specific as well...  :-p

--HM
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Re: [Wikitech-l] 1.22.0rc3 ready for download

2013-12-05 Thread John
VE is a BAD idea, its full of holes and bugs


On Tue, Dec 3, 2013 at 4:32 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote:

 On 3 December 2013 21:26, Mark A. Hershberger m...@everybody.org wrote:

  We've put together RC3 for 1.22.0. Please test the tarball and report
  any bugs you find on Bugzilla: http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/


 Here's a question: is there a set-out list of steps to enable Visual
 Editor in this? Or is VE not quite ready for this?

 Basically, what would the VE experience be for someone wanting 1.22 on
 their intranet?


 - d.

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Re: [Wikitech-l] 1.22.0rc3 ready for download

2013-12-05 Thread Tyler Romeo
On Tue, Dec 3, 2013 at 4:39 PM, John phoenixoverr...@gmail.com wrote:

 VE is a BAD idea, its full of holes and bugs


Those are two separate concepts. Just because something has bugs does not
make the software itself a bad idea.

*-- *
*Tyler Romeo*
Stevens Institute of Technology, Class of 2016
Major in Computer Science
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Re: [Wikitech-l] 1.22.0rc3 ready for download

2013-12-05 Thread K. Peachey
Bad idea [to package/install],…

Is what I believe beta was saying Tyler.

On Friday, December 6, 2013, Tyler Romeo wrote:

 On Tue, Dec 3, 2013 at 4:39 PM, John phoenixoverr...@gmail.comjavascript:;
 wrote:

  VE is a BAD idea, its full of holes and bugs


 Those are two separate concepts. Just because something has bugs does not
 make the software itself a bad idea.

 *-- *
 *Tyler Romeo*
 Stevens Institute of Technology, Class of 2016
 Major in Computer Science
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Re: [Wikitech-l] 1.22.0rc3 ready for download

2013-12-05 Thread John
Correct, I see how my words can be taken several ways. Right now VE is a
very unstable, bug filled, obnoxious elephant. Given enough time, testing,
and maturity it as a lot of promise.

Right now its like trying to use a rocket like
http://cdn.instructables.com/F9Y/2ONP/F4TLKVHS/F9Y2ONPF4TLKVHS.LARGE.jpg to
land a man on the moon.

I would give VE probably another 18-24 months before its really ready to be
switched on as a default editor for any non-testing wiki.


On Thu, Dec 5, 2013 at 9:17 PM, K. Peachey p858sn...@gmail.com wrote:

 Bad idea [to package/install],…

 Is what I believe beta was saying Tyler.

 On Friday, December 6, 2013, Tyler Romeo wrote:

  On Tue, Dec 3, 2013 at 4:39 PM, John phoenixoverr...@gmail.com
 javascript:;
  wrote:
 
   VE is a BAD idea, its full of holes and bugs
 
 
  Those are two separate concepts. Just because something has bugs does not
  make the software itself a bad idea.
 
  *-- *
  *Tyler Romeo*
  Stevens Institute of Technology, Class of 2016
  Major in Computer Science
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Re: [Wikitech-l] Please use sitenotice when a new version of software is deployed

2013-12-05 Thread Gerard Meijssen
Hoi,
Let us be honest indeed. The others are not heard when they scream and
shout in their little corner of the world..
Thanks,
 Gerard


On 5 December 2013 23:41, Happy Melon happy.melon.w...@gmail.com wrote:

 On 5 December 2013 23:36, Bartosz Dziewoński matma@gmail.com wrote:

  On Thu, 05 Dec 2013 23:00:04 +0100, Dan Garry dga...@wikimedia.org
  wrote:
 
   How about getting this stuff included in the Signpost? I think that's a
  good medium for it.
 
 
  Signpost is English-specific, Wikipedia-specific and
  English-Wikipedia-specific.
 


 But let's be honest; the disproportionate majority of user discontent is
 enwiki-specific as well...  :-p

 --HM
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Re: [Wikitech-l] Please use sitenotice when a new version of software is deployed

2013-12-05 Thread Guillaume Paumier
Hi,

On Thu, Dec 5, 2013 at 10:22 PM, Brian Wolff bawo...@gmail.com wrote:

 As it stands we don't really summarize changes very well, which is a
 prerequisite for telling people about changes. Occasionally changes
 make it to Tech/news, but that seems sporadic.

snip

 I think the best way forward would be to more accurately describe
 upcoming changes on tech/news. Once we actually have a user-readable
 summary of actual changes that are happening, then we could have a
 more reasonable discussion about how to get the information into
 people who care's hands, without spamming people who don't. Of course
 maintaining tech/news would probably require more effort being put
 towards it then is currently done, which requires someone (or multiple
 someones) to actually do so.

Yep. Most of the limitations of Tech News stem from the fact that it's
largely a one-man effort, which means (among other things) that things
get missed.

As for the accurate description part, it's a difficult balance to
strike between tech-savvy readers who would understand accurate (but
complex terms), and readers without deep technical expertise who need
things to be explained more simply (and maybe slightly inaccurately).
On top of that, we also need to facilitate the work of translators by
avoiding colloquialisms, etc.

I think the Tech news page makes it simple enough to get involved and
contribute: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News#contribute ; We
also have a reasonably-stable schedule, so now we just need more
people to give a hand. I'm actually drafting an overview of how Tech
news works behind the scenes; I'll share it on this list when it's
out.

Developers would be ideally-placed to help identify noteworthy changes
that will affect Wikimedia users, but most find that activity about as
interesting as writing documentation, which says something :)

Earlier this year, in a discussion about Gerrit keywords, I suggested
that we could use them to tag noteworthy changes, in order to make it
easier for developers to identify noteworthy changes, while reducing
overhead. Unfortunately, the discussion apparently died:
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.technical/68183/focus=68292

In the meantime, sending a short message to the wikitech-ambassadors
list, or dumping a gerrit/bugzilla link at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/Next is the best way to make
sure something is communicated to Wikimedians who have subscribed to
be informed of tech-related changes likely to affect them.

I have ideas on how to improve things in the long term, but I'm open
to other suggestions to improve things in the shorter term as well.

-- 
Guillaume Paumier
Technical Communications Manager — Wikimedia Foundation

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