Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor "temporary" opt-out

[Peter Southwood]

Yes, the signal tends to be lost in the noise.
Cheers,
Peter
- Original Message - 
From: "Kevin Wayne Williams" 

To: "Wikimedia Mailing List" 
Sent: Tuesday, August 06, 2013 11:10 PM
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor "temporary" opt-out



Op 2013/08/06 13:05, Peter Southwood schreef:
 This is Wikipedia, there are always a small number who make a lot of 
noise.


I think that's part of the problem: any change hits a nerve *somewhere*, 
so even when it's a real problem, observers are likely to dismiss it as 
being just more of the same.


KWW

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[Wikimedia-l] A proposal towards a multilingual Wikipedia

[Denny Vrandečić]

I have been thinking about this for a while, and now finally managed to
write it down as a proposal. Details are on meta on the following link,
below is the intro to the proposal:



I tried to anticipate some possible questions and provide answers on the
page. Besides that, I obviously hope that Wikimania could provide a place
to start this conversation. And yes, I am aware that the proposal would
lead to a very restrictive solution, but imagine what good it already could
achieve! And since it is not meant to replace anything, but enrich our
current projects... well, read for yourself.

Cheers,
Denny


Wikipedia provides knowledge in more than 200 languages. Whereas a small
number of languages are fortunate enough to have a large Wikipedia, many of
the language editions are far away from providing a comprehensive
encyclopedia by any measure. There are several approaches towards closing
this gap, mostly focusing on increasing the number of contributors to the
small language editions or to improve the provision of automatic or
semi-automatic translations of articles. Both are viable. In the following
we present a proposal for a different approach, which is based on the idea
of multilingual Wikipedia.

Imagine a small extension to the template system, where a template call
like *{{F12}}* would not be expanded by a call to the template
Template:F12, but rather to Template:F12/en, i.e. the template name with
the selected language code of the reader of the page. A template call such
as *{{F12:Q64|Q5519|Q183}}* can be expanded by Template:F12/en into *“Berlin
is the capital of Germany.”* and by Template:F12/de into *“Berlin ist die
Hauptstadt Deutschlands.”* (in the example, the template parameters Q5119,
Q64 and Q183 refer to the Wikidata items for capital, Berlin and Germany
respectively, which the templates query for the label in the respective
language). Sentence by sentence could be created in order to provide for a
simple article.

That wiki would consist of *content*, i.e. the article pages, possibly just
a simple series of template calls, and *frames*, i.e. the templates that
lexicalize the parameters of a given template call into a sentence (Note
that “sentence” here should not be considered literally. It could be a
table, an image, anything). The implementation of the frames can be done in
normal wiki template syntax, in Lua, in a novel mechanism, or a mix of
these. This would be up to the communities creating them.

Read the rest here:


-- 
Project director Wikidata
Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. | Obentrautstr. 72 | 10963 Berlin
Tel. +49-30-219 158 26-0 | http://wikimedia.de

Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.V.
Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter
der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für
Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/681/51985.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor "temporary" opt-out

[Kevin Wayne Williams]

Op 2013/08/06 13:05, Peter Southwood schreef:
 This is Wikipedia, there are always a small number who make a lot of 
noise.


I think that's part of the problem: any change hits a nerve *somewhere*, 
so even when it's a real problem, observers are likely to dismiss it as 
being just more of the same.


KWW

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor "temporary" opt-out

[Peter Southwood]

To me it looks like a fairly small number of editors are making a fairly 
large amount of noise, A very small number making a disproportionately large 
amount, and a much larger number, probably the majority, have not even 
bothered to comment at all. I also have not analysed the numbers, but to me 
it looks like the numbers who have made one liner comments that they approve 
is probably the same order of magnitude as the number who protest 
incessantly. This is Wikipedia, there are always a small number who make a 
lot of noise. After a while fewer people take them seriously. I start to get 
the impression that there are now some people who have invested so much 
effort into making a big deal of this that they now feel obliged to make an 
even bigger deal so they can feel justified in doing so.  Maybe I'm wrong, 
maybe the numbers do indicate a wdespread and deep seated sense of 
alienation. Maybe not. Time will probably tell, and hey, someone who is 
prepared to approach the analysis scientifcally may get a dissertation out 
of it. Stranger things have happened.. I also think the approach was flawed, 
but I appreciate the reasons and I am prepared to assume good faith.

Cheers,
Peter
- Original Message - 
From: "Kevin Wayne Williams" 

To: "Wikimedia Mailing List" 
Sent: Tuesday, August 06, 2013 9:02 PM
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor "temporary" opt-out


I've made no claim about "most" long-term editors, but any perusal of the 
two RFCs and the Feedback page would demonstrate that there's a fairly 
large group.


Or are you arguing that deploying bug-ridden software that corrupts 
articles, hangs browsers, crashes unexpectedly, and doesn't have 
sufficient features to edit basic articles is somehow OK as long the site 
survives the disruption? Even if it can be shown that development knew 
that was the case prior to deployment, and chose to deploy it anyway?


KWW

Op 2013/08/06 10:54, Peter Southwood schreef:
Evidence that most long term editors are frothing at the mouth would be a 
good start, evidence that the rollout of VE has had a significant impact 
on long term editor retention, either way, even evidence that WP is in 
rapid decline that is in any way related to VE, positively or negatively,

Cheers,
Peter

- Original Message - From: "Kevin Wayne Williams" 


To: "Wikimedia Mailing List" 
Sent: Tuesday, August 06, 2013 6:14 PM
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor "temporary" opt-out



Op 2013/08/06 9:07, Peter Southwood schreef:

Do you have data to back up your claims?
Peter
What do you need? Evidence that Wikipedia has survived for years? 
Evidence that its decline is not so rapid as to indicate an emergency 
situation? Quotes from Erik where he states that he disrupted English 
Wikipedia in order to create a test bed? The first two are judgement 
calls, for the third there's an embarrassment of riches. Let me know 
what you need.


KWW



- Original Message - From: "Kevin Wayne Williams" 


To: "Wikimedia Mailing List" 
Sent: Tuesday, August 06, 2013 4:51 PM
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor "temporary" opt-out



Op 2013/08/05 23:44, MZMcBride schreef:
This leaves us to consider the biggest question: opt-in vs. opt-out. 
Erik and James are both quite smart, they are true Wikimedians, and 
they make reasonable points about choosing opt-out over opt-in.
This is the point on which we fundamentally disagree. Their argument 
for 'opt-out' is based solely upon the quality and quantity of testing 
that it affords to VE. VE is not a mission-critical feature: while we 
have concerns about Wikipedia's sustainability, there's no question 
that it has survived for years and will survive for years more. The 
stability of the site is much more important than testing this code, 
and the testing strategy of presenting it as if it was functioning 
software and seeing what people did with it wasn't a reasonable 
decision: it was completely and absolutely irresponsible.


KWW

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor "temporary" opt-out

[Kevin Wayne Williams]

I've made no claim about "most" long-term editors, but any perusal of 
the two RFCs and the Feedback page would demonstrate that there's a 
fairly large group.


Or are you arguing that deploying bug-ridden software that corrupts 
articles, hangs browsers, crashes unexpectedly, and doesn't have 
sufficient features to edit basic articles is somehow OK as long the 
site survives the disruption? Even if it can be shown that development 
knew that was the case prior to deployment, and chose to deploy it anyway?


KWW

Op 2013/08/06 10:54, Peter Southwood schreef:
Evidence that most long term editors are frothing at the mouth would 
be a good start, evidence that the rollout of VE has had a significant 
impact on long term editor retention, either way, even evidence that 
WP is in rapid decline that is in any way related to VE, positively or 
negatively,

Cheers,
Peter

- Original Message - From: "Kevin Wayne Williams" 


To: "Wikimedia Mailing List" 
Sent: Tuesday, August 06, 2013 6:14 PM
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor "temporary" opt-out



Op 2013/08/06 9:07, Peter Southwood schreef:

Do you have data to back up your claims?
Peter
What do you need? Evidence that Wikipedia has survived for years? 
Evidence that its decline is not so rapid as to indicate an emergency 
situation? Quotes from Erik where he states that he disrupted English 
Wikipedia in order to create a test bed? The first two are judgement 
calls, for the third there's an embarrassment of riches. Let me know 
what you need.


KWW



- Original Message - From: "Kevin Wayne Williams" 


To: "Wikimedia Mailing List" 
Sent: Tuesday, August 06, 2013 4:51 PM
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor "temporary" opt-out



Op 2013/08/05 23:44, MZMcBride schreef:
This leaves us to consider the biggest question: opt-in vs. 
opt-out. Erik and James are both quite smart, they are true 
Wikimedians, and they make reasonable points about choosing 
opt-out over opt-in.
This is the point on which we fundamentally disagree. Their 
argument for 'opt-out' is based solely upon the quality and 
quantity of testing that it affords to VE. VE is not a 
mission-critical feature: while we have concerns about Wikipedia's 
sustainability, there's no question that it has survived for years 
and will survive for years more. The stability of the site is much 
more important than testing this code, and the testing strategy of 
presenting it as if it was functioning software and seeing what 
people did with it wasn't a reasonable decision: it was completely 
and absolutely irresponsible.


KWW

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] An idea that may improve Wikipedia's fundraising

[MZMcBride]

Matthew Walker wrote:
>Technology limitations aside, there are two things we throw around in the
>team a lot; that we should not give the impression that a user *must* pay
>to use a WMF property, and that we will never ever do gift premiums.

Hi Matt.

This sounds a bit like "Fundraising principles" or similar. Are these
documented anywhere (e.g. on Meta-Wiki)? If not, I think it'd be great to
start a page. :-)

MZMcBride



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Re: [Wikimedia-l] An idea that may improve Wikipedia's fundraising

[David Gerard]

On 6 August 2013 18:46, Matthew Walker  wrote:

> In addition what use would giving a donor a DVD set serve? They clearly
> already have access to the site -- with the caveat that some countries have
> restricted use restrictions from the local government. If instead we are
> talking about donating them for the purposes of expanding our reach into
> countries where we presently have limited participation; it seems the
> current strategy is to convince local mobile carriers to support Wikimedia
> Zero.


While it isn't so applicable to funding, I will note that the
Wikipedia Selection for Schools DVD - which is actually edited and
reviewed - is much loved by teachers. So there are people who want
this stuff.


- d.

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Communication plans for community engagement

[Nathan]

You argued that a North American bias, or differences between American
culture and that of Europe and elsewhere, might be part of the problem
in why the VE is getting a backlash on projects for European
languages.

I'll take on faith that anti-Americanism doesn't explain why you jump
to this conclusion when there are many that make more sense, but how
do you explain then the fact that the English Wikipedia (which,
presumably, has a similar North American bias) is having a very
similar reaction as the Dutch?

I just think this resort to "it must be cultural differences between
Americans and those of us from the Continent" is an intellectual cop
out, a way of blaming without finding actual root causes or
contributing to a constructive solution. Systemic biases do exist, and
culture clashes do occur, but we should not jump to them as an
explanation without exploring other factors.

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] An idea that may improve Wikipedia's fundraising

[Richard Farmbrough]

enwiki-20130708-pages-articles.xml.bz2 
 
9.3 GB - a double sided single layer  DVD (9.4gb).  The images would be 
more challenging.


On 06/08/2013 17:52, Kevin Wayne Williams wrote:
More like a complete set of Wikipedia Blu-Rays. I forget the actual 
byte count of Wikipedia these days, but it's well over anything you 
would want to try to store on DVDs.


KWW


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor "temporary" opt-out

[Peter Southwood]

Evidence that most long term editors are frothing at the mouth would be a 
good start, evidence that the rollout of VE has had a significant impact on 
long term editor retention, either way, even evidence that WP is in rapid 
decline that is in any way related to VE, positively or negatively,

Cheers,
Peter

- Original Message - 
From: "Kevin Wayne Williams" 

To: "Wikimedia Mailing List" 
Sent: Tuesday, August 06, 2013 6:14 PM
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor "temporary" opt-out



Op 2013/08/06 9:07, Peter Southwood schreef:

Do you have data to back up your claims?
Peter
What do you need? Evidence that Wikipedia has survived for years? Evidence 
that its decline is not so rapid as to indicate an emergency situation? 
Quotes from Erik where he states that he disrupted English Wikipedia in 
order to create a test bed? The first two are judgement calls, for the 
third there's an embarrassment of riches. Let me know what you need.


KWW



- Original Message - From: "Kevin Wayne Williams" 


To: "Wikimedia Mailing List" 
Sent: Tuesday, August 06, 2013 4:51 PM
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor "temporary" opt-out



Op 2013/08/05 23:44, MZMcBride schreef:
This leaves us to consider the biggest question: opt-in vs. opt-out. 
Erik and James are both quite smart, they are true Wikimedians, and 
they make reasonable points about choosing opt-out over opt-in.
This is the point on which we fundamentally disagree. Their argument for 
'opt-out' is based solely upon the quality and quantity of testing that 
it affords to VE. VE is not a mission-critical feature: while we have 
concerns about Wikipedia's sustainability, there's no question that it 
has survived for years and will survive for years more. The stability of 
the site is much more important than testing this code, and the testing 
strategy of presenting it as if it was functioning software and seeing 
what people did with it wasn't a reasonable decision: it was completely 
and absolutely irresponsible.


KWW

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] An idea that may improve Wikipedia's fundraising

[Matthew Walker]

Ziyuan,

Thanks for the idea! :)

Technology limitations aside, there are two things we throw around in the
team a lot; that we should not give the impression that a user *must* pay
to use a WMF property, and that we will never ever do gift premiums.

From my perspective buying a DVD set sounds scarily close to having to pay
for the content and even if it doesn't fall under that category that it
would fall under the shadow of gift premiums.

In addition what use would giving a donor a DVD set serve? They clearly
already have access to the site -- with the caveat that some countries have
restricted use restrictions from the local government. If instead we are
talking about donating them for the purposes of expanding our reach into
countries where we presently have limited participation; it seems the
current strategy is to convince local mobile carriers to support Wikimedia
Zero.

Taking into account technology -- I am unsure that spending the money to
develop the infrastructure would be offset by the amount of interest we
would have. Think also that although the shop will ship something for 15
USD, that's actually a subsidized rate for most international destinations.
My guess is that we would be looking at more than 50$ a set, just for
production and shipping, before getting anywhere near breaking even.

~Matt Walker
Wikimedia Foundation
Fundraising Technology Team


On Tue, Aug 6, 2013 at 9:52 AM, Kevin Wayne Williams <
kwwilli...@kwwilliams.com> wrote:

> Op 2013/08/06 9:40, Ziyuan Yao schreef:
>
>  The key point in my original idea is that you make buyers believe that
>> they're not just giving money away, but also getting some "solid value" in
>> return. A Wikipedia DVD is a kind of "solid value".
>>
> More like a complete set of Wikipedia Blu-Rays. I forget the actual byte
> count of Wikipedia these days, but it's well over anything you would want
> to try to store on DVDs.
>
> KWW
>
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] An idea that may improve Wikipedia's fundraising

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

We did it in the past, https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/DVD

Kevin Wayne Williams, 06/08/2013 18:52:

Op 2013/08/06 9:40, Ziyuan Yao schreef:

The key point in my original idea is that you make buyers believe that
they're not just giving money away, but also getting some "solid
value" in
return. A Wikipedia DVD is a kind of "solid value".

More like a complete set of Wikipedia Blu-Rays. I forget the actual byte
count of Wikipedia these days, but it's well over anything you would
want to try to store on DVDs.


Not really, a DVD-DL is usually (i.e. for all languages but en) enough 
thanks to openZIM's compression techniques; few years ago we didn't even 
need that, a normal DVD was enough.
As someone who spent countless hours working on the 2nd edition of the 
DVD in Italy around 2009 (which was never born), I'd of course like to 
see this done again, but there are a few problems from an economical POV.
1) "You are mad!" Publishing a DVD and hosting an open website are two 
entirely different matters. WMIT could earn a 10 years lawsuit for every 
single wrong sentence on Wikipedia; this must be handled by professional 
publishers.
2) "Not worth it". DVDs are extremely cheap nowadays (printing a few 
thousands, a packaged DVD-DL could cost around 0.10 € last time I 
checked), but for the same reason they don't sell a high prices and they 
don't make an interesting enough income to enter into negotiations with 
publishers and distributors. The areas with poor internet that would 
benefit from it tend also to have worse distribution.
3) Of course, trademarks. You probably want to stick the Wikipedia logo, 
and possibly other Wikimedia projects logos (there's space enough in a 
disc for all of them), on your DVD. It was hard enough to negotiate 
everything with the WMF a few years back even for an established 
chapter; it gets more restrictive month by month, so it would surely be 
a nightmare nowadays. It's probably not worth the few cents more (see 
previous point), I'd probably end up not using the Wikipedia logo at all 
but only my chapter's.


Nemo

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] An idea that may improve Wikipedia's fundraising

[Kevin Wayne Williams]

Op 2013/08/06 9:40, Ziyuan Yao schreef:

The key point in my original idea is that you make buyers believe that
they're not just giving money away, but also getting some "solid value" in
return. A Wikipedia DVD is a kind of "solid value".
More like a complete set of Wikipedia Blu-Rays. I forget the actual byte 
count of Wikipedia these days, but it's well over anything you would 
want to try to store on DVDs.


KWW

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] An idea that may improve Wikipedia's fundraising

[Ziyuan Yao]

The key point in my original idea is that you make buyers believe that
they're not just giving money away, but also getting some "solid value" in
return. A Wikipedia DVD is a kind of "solid value".


On Wed, Aug 7, 2013 at 12:28 AM, Tobias
wrote:

> On 08/06/2013 06:01 PM, Ziyuan Yao wrote:
>
>> Dear All,
>>
>> Besides asking for direct donations, there is another way that can
>> potentially help Wikipedia's fundraising:
>>
>
> There was also the idea of having beside the free App an (nearly
> identical) App-with-donation that is not free but costs a few bucks. The
> revenue from the App then goes to Wikimedia as a donation.
>
> Alternatively, there is In-app billing, for example with
> https://github.com/**dschuermann/android-donations-**lib
>
> This would allow adding a "Donate" button inside the App.
>
> There are numerous ways of making donations possible... not just web
> banners!
>
> Cheers,
> Tobias
>
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] An idea that may improve Wikipedia's fundraising

[Tobias]

On 08/06/2013 06:01 PM, Ziyuan Yao wrote:

Dear All,

Besides asking for direct donations, there is another way that can
potentially help Wikipedia's fundraising:


There was also the idea of having beside the free App an (nearly 
identical) App-with-donation that is not free but costs a few bucks. The 
revenue from the App then goes to Wikimedia as a donation.


Alternatively, there is In-app billing, for example with 
https://github.com/dschuermann/android-donations-lib


This would allow adding a "Donate" button inside the App.

There are numerous ways of making donations possible... not just web 
banners!


Cheers,
Tobias


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor "temporary" opt-out

[Kevin Wayne Williams]

Op 2013/08/06 9:07, Peter Southwood schreef:

Do you have data to back up your claims?
Peter
What do you need? Evidence that Wikipedia has survived for years? 
Evidence that its decline is not so rapid as to indicate an emergency 
situation? Quotes from Erik where he states that he disrupted English 
Wikipedia in order to create a test bed? The first two are judgement 
calls, for the third there's an embarrassment of riches. Let me know 
what you need.


KWW



- Original Message - From: "Kevin Wayne Williams" 


To: "Wikimedia Mailing List" 
Sent: Tuesday, August 06, 2013 4:51 PM
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor "temporary" opt-out



Op 2013/08/05 23:44, MZMcBride schreef:
This leaves us to consider the biggest question: opt-in vs. opt-out. 
Erik and James are both quite smart, they are true Wikimedians, and 
they make reasonable points about choosing opt-out over opt-in.
This is the point on which we fundamentally disagree. Their argument 
for 'opt-out' is based solely upon the quality and quantity of 
testing that it affords to VE. VE is not a mission-critical feature: 
while we have concerns about Wikipedia's sustainability, there's no 
question that it has survived for years and will survive for years 
more. The stability of the site is much more important than testing 
this code, and the testing strategy of presenting it as if it was 
functioning software and seeing what people did with it wasn't a 
reasonable decision: it was completely and absolutely irresponsible.


KWW

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor "temporary" opt-out

[Peter Southwood]

Do you have data to back up your claims?
Peter
- Original Message - 
From: "Kevin Wayne Williams" 

To: "Wikimedia Mailing List" 
Sent: Tuesday, August 06, 2013 4:51 PM
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor "temporary" opt-out



Op 2013/08/05 23:44, MZMcBride schreef:
This leaves us to consider the biggest question: opt-in vs. opt-out. Erik 
and James are both quite smart, they are true Wikimedians, and they make 
reasonable points about choosing opt-out over opt-in.
This is the point on which we fundamentally disagree. Their argument for 
'opt-out' is based solely upon the quality and quantity of testing that it 
affords to VE. VE is not a mission-critical feature: while we have 
concerns about Wikipedia's sustainability, there's no question that it has 
survived for years and will survive for years more. The stability of the 
site is much more important than testing this code, and the testing 
strategy of presenting it as if it was functioning software and seeing 
what people did with it wasn't a reasonable decision: it was completely 
and absolutely irresponsible.


KWW

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[Wikimedia-l] An idea that may improve Wikipedia's fundraising

[Ziyuan Yao]

Dear All,

Besides asking for direct donations, there is another way that can
potentially help Wikipedia's fundraising:

Instead of asking for money but offering nothing in return, Wikipedia can
ask supporters to buy a monthly or annual issue of "Offline Wikipedia DVD".
The DVD contains software and data that let the user browse Wikipedia
offline, which can be good for times when Internet access is limited or
unavailable (e.g. on travel). Of course the price will be higher than the
actual DVD creation and shipping costs, so as to support Wikipedia's
operation.

This idea has some foundations in consumer psychology theories. For
example, street artists don't just ask for money; they perform to give
supporters something in return.

Regards,
Ziyuan Yao
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor "temporary" opt-out

[Martijn Hoekstra]

On Tue, Aug 6, 2013 at 5:06 PM, Kevin Wayne Williams <
kwwilli...@kwwilliams.com> wrote:

> Op 2013/08/06 7:55, Martijn Hoekstra schreef:
>
>> On Tue, Aug 6, 2013 at 4:51 PM, Kevin Wayne Williams <
>> kwwilli...@kwwilliams.com> wrote:
>>
>>Their argument for
>>> 'opt-out' is based solely upon the quality and quantity of testing that
>>> it
>>> affords to VE. VE is not a mission-critical feature: while we have
>>> concerns
>>> about Wikipedia's sustainability, there's no question that it has
>>> survived
>>> for years and will survive for years more. The stability of the site is
>>> much more important than testing this code, and the testing strategy of
>>> presenting it as if it was functioning software and seeing what people
>>> did
>>> with it wasn't a reasonable decision: it was completely and absolutely
>>> irresponsible.
>>>
>>>
>>>  Opt-out with a beta or experimental notice (as it is now when enabled on
>> en.wiki) doesn't seem to have the problem of presenting it if it were
>> mature software you present as the pivotal problem in this post.
>>
> Their deployment strategy (not labeling the software as beta on the user
> interface, changing the function of the existing buttons, no warning when
> the software was entered, deploying it to new editors that had no chance of
> having seen notices about it) hinged on getting the unwary and uninformed
> to press the "edit" button without realizing what they were getting into.
> Saying that it is reasonable *now* doesn't excuse the five weeks that
> preceded it.
>
> KWW


No, and I'm very concerned about the deployment as it happened, as well as
its immediate aftermath. I believe those are incredibly important and hard
discussions we as a movement (and that includes you, WMF employees!) have
to have, lest things go this wrong in the future again. I find the
discussion on having opt-in or opt-out in the current situation where the
button is clearly marked as beta to be unimportant or even trivial in
comparison, and think that if we keep talking about the last implementation
disagreements, we are taking attention away from the issue that should be
discussed, which is how we can avoid a fiasco like this the next time.

--Martijn


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor "temporary" opt-out

[Kevin Wayne Williams]

Op 2013/08/06 7:55, Martijn Hoekstra schreef:

On Tue, Aug 6, 2013 at 4:51 PM, Kevin Wayne Williams <
kwwilli...@kwwilliams.com> wrote:


  Their argument for
'opt-out' is based solely upon the quality and quantity of testing that it
affords to VE. VE is not a mission-critical feature: while we have concerns
about Wikipedia's sustainability, there's no question that it has survived
for years and will survive for years more. The stability of the site is
much more important than testing this code, and the testing strategy of
presenting it as if it was functioning software and seeing what people did
with it wasn't a reasonable decision: it was completely and absolutely
irresponsible.



Opt-out with a beta or experimental notice (as it is now when enabled on
en.wiki) doesn't seem to have the problem of presenting it if it were
mature software you present as the pivotal problem in this post.
Their deployment strategy (not labeling the software as beta on the user 
interface, changing the function of the existing buttons, no warning 
when the software was entered, deploying it to new editors that had no 
chance of having seen notices about it) hinged on getting the unwary and 
uninformed to press the "edit" button without realizing what they were 
getting into. Saying that it is reasonable *now* doesn't excuse the five 
weeks that preceded it.


KWW

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor "temporary" opt-out

[Martijn Hoekstra]

On Tue, Aug 6, 2013 at 4:51 PM, Kevin Wayne Williams <
kwwilli...@kwwilliams.com> wrote:

> Op 2013/08/05 23:44, MZMcBride schreef:
>
>  This leaves us to consider the biggest question: opt-in vs. opt-out. Erik
>> and James are both quite smart, they are true Wikimedians, and they make
>> reasonable points about choosing opt-out over opt-in.
>>
> This is the point on which we fundamentally disagree. Their argument for
> 'opt-out' is based solely upon the quality and quantity of testing that it
> affords to VE. VE is not a mission-critical feature: while we have concerns
> about Wikipedia's sustainability, there's no question that it has survived
> for years and will survive for years more. The stability of the site is
> much more important than testing this code, and the testing strategy of
> presenting it as if it was functioning software and seeing what people did
> with it wasn't a reasonable decision: it was completely and absolutely
> irresponsible.
>
> KWW
>
>
Opt-out with a beta or experimental notice (as it is now when enabled on
en.wiki) doesn't seem to have the problem of presenting it if it were
mature software you present as the pivotal problem in this post.




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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor "temporary" opt-out

[Kevin Wayne Williams]

Op 2013/08/05 23:44, MZMcBride schreef:
This leaves us to consider the biggest question: opt-in vs. opt-out. 
Erik and James are both quite smart, they are true Wikimedians, and 
they make reasonable points about choosing opt-out over opt-in.
This is the point on which we fundamentally disagree. Their argument for 
'opt-out' is based solely upon the quality and quantity of testing that 
it affords to VE. VE is not a mission-critical feature: while we have 
concerns about Wikipedia's sustainability, there's no question that it 
has survived for years and will survive for years more. The stability of 
the site is much more important than testing this code, and the testing 
strategy of presenting it as if it was functioning software and seeing 
what people did with it wasn't a reasonable decision: it was completely 
and absolutely irresponsible.


KWW

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor "temporary" opt-out

[Martijn Hoekstra]

On Tue, Aug 6, 2013 at 3:10 PM, Richard Farmbrough  wrote:

> Apparently important.  I am aware, as probably everyone is, that this is
> the first most obvious step to make article editing more accessible, and
> address certain inclusiveness goals.  I am also aware that there is no data
> to support the theory that a visual editor means more inclusive editing,
> let alone that it will result in better content.
>
> I will simply add a couple of observations.
>
> The learning curve for wikitext is one of the shallowest of any
> application.  Press edit, type in the box and press save.  If you can type
> and press edit and save (the latter two of which /are/ HMI issues IMHO) you
> can edit Wikimedia projects.
>
> Secondly, and anecdotally, most full functioned word-processors have a
> plethora of functions that are usually only known about by the same
> "tech-savvy"  group that we currently believe are at home with wiki-text.
>
> Thirdly I vividly remember my first editing experiences - I did not think
> I would /ever /be touching stuff like infoboxes and categories, but they
> made no real obstacle to editing.  (The keyboard only method of formatting
> text took seconds to understand, and saves a huge amount of time.)
>
> I would not be surprised if the /choice/ of editor turns out to be the
> reason that editing has fallen off more rather than the VE itself.


Not discrediting the rest of your email, your note about that a new editor
now has to choose  which editor he would like to use is indeed a very smart
one (the paradox of choice and all that). Has any research been done or
planned on the subject?

>
>
> On 06/08/2013 08:04, MZMcBride wrote:
>
>> I cannot and will not blame the Wikimedia Foundation for working on this
>> project. It's an important project
>>
> ...
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor "temporary" opt-out

[Todd Allen]

On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 8:35 PM, MZMcBride  wrote:

> Todd Allen wrote:
> >[comments about VisualEditor]
>
> Hi Todd.
>
> Thank you for writing this e-mail. Unfortunately I don't have a
> particularly unified reply to write here, but I can offer five thoughts.
>
> Regarding the specific issue you mention (the labeling of the user
> preference), I think there should be at least a little recognition that
> much more than half of the battle was getting this user preference
> re-added, supported for future VisualEditor releases, and appropriately
> positioned under the "Editing" user preferences tab rather than the
> "Gadgets" user preferences tab. Now that we've made forward progress on
> those fronts, re-labeling the user preference is a simple matter of
> editing the page "MediaWiki:Visualeditor-preference-betatempdisable".
>
> Broadly, looking at your e-mail, I wonder what your thoughts are on the
> extent to which one wiki, even the golden goose, can dictate Wikimedia
> Foundation product engineering and development. While the English
> Wikipedia is certainly a formidable force, do you think it should be
> capable, through an on-wiki discussion, of setting or changing high-level
> priorities and their implementation strategies? If so, why and how?
>
> I started
>  to
> discuss actionable improvements that can be made right now related to
> VisualEditor and its deployment. Please participate. :-)
>
> And I started  to
> examine the pattern of complaints related to VisualEditor.
>
> Finally, and somewhat related to the complaints page, I've been thinking
> lately about the British and the Irish and the nature of insurgencies. I
> believe the VisualEditor team is now viewed by many on the English
> Wikipedia (and other wikis) as an occupying force. Consequently, this has
> created an insurgency composed of long-time editors. This isn't meant to
> be hyperbolic: nobody is rioting in the streets or planning warfare (yet).
> However, the anger felt by many in the editing community toward the
> VisualEditor team is very real and very worrying, as is the seemingly
> heavy-handed way in which VisualEditor has been deployed. Just a few weeks
> ago, VisualEditor was receiving accolades for the way in which it had been
> slowly and thoughtfully developed and deployed. However, seemingly
> arbitrary deadlines and a few key bad decisions have greatly hurt it. The
> wounds are deep, but it remains to be seen whether they will be fatal.
>
> MZMcBride
>
>
>
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>

MzMcBride,

Thanks for the response, and the thoughtful questions. Since they're rather
different, I'll answer them in turn.

My concern on the user preference is not what we call it. Rather, it's on
what we intend to do with it; namely, remove it after the VE beta is "done"
(and for many of us, WMF's project managers have shown remarkably poor
judgment in properly determining what's "done" or "ready"). Even if VE
worked well, I'm the type of person who uses a bash command shell in
preference to a GUI most of the time (and go nuts when I'm required to use
Windows for work), and I'm just not interested in the visual editor. For me
personally, it's nothing I'll ever use. By all means, offer the GUI to
whoever will find it useful, but I want a way to make sure it's not sucking
up resources every time I edit. But despite this, once they say it's
"ready", we're getting it crammed down our throats, like it or not. Even
the name of the page, "betatempdisable", indicates that once again, the
ability to disable this thing will be taken out of where it belongs, and
once again volunteers will have to use their time to develop and maintain a
gadget because WMF just can't resist saying "We say it's READY, and you
will have it there whether or not you ever plan to use it!"

As to "dictat(ing)" to WMF, well, in the most technical sense, no one has
any say at all. WMF pays the bills and the devs, so WMF can, whenever it
wants, override what en.wikipedia or any other project tells it.

So we know WMF -can- override en.wikipedia, or any other project. The
question, then, is whether they should. This is a volunteer project, where
comparable to the user base, a relatively small group of volunteer users
does the bulk of the work on creating and maintaining the site's content.
Anonymous and drive-by editors are allowed to help, they often do, and
that's appreciated. We should do what we can to make it easier for them to,
but not at the expense of our long-term volunteers. What happens now is
that those dedicated volunteers are called "power users", treated
dismissively and sometimes flat rudely, and told they don't r

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor "temporary" opt-out

[Richard Farmbrough]

Apparently important.  I am aware, as probably everyone is, that this is 
the first most obvious step to make article editing more accessible, and 
address certain inclusiveness goals.  I am also aware that there is no 
data to support the theory that a visual editor means more inclusive 
editing, let alone that it will result in better content.


I will simply add a couple of observations.

The learning curve for wikitext is one of the shallowest of any 
application.  Press edit, type in the box and press save.  If you can 
type and press edit and save (the latter two of which /are/ HMI issues 
IMHO) you can edit Wikimedia projects.


Secondly, and anecdotally, most full functioned word-processors have a 
plethora of functions that are usually only known about by the same 
"tech-savvy"  group that we currently believe are at home with wiki-text.


Thirdly I vividly remember my first editing experiences - I did not 
think I would /ever /be touching stuff like infoboxes and categories, 
but they made no real obstacle to editing.  (The keyboard only method of 
formatting text took seconds to understand, and saves a huge amount of 
time.)


I would not be surprised if the /choice/ of editor turns out to be the 
reason that editing has fallen off more rather than the VE itself.


On 06/08/2013 08:04, MZMcBride wrote:
I cannot and will not blame the Wikimedia Foundation for working on 
this project. It's an important project

...
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WCA Quest for the Cool Name

[Pharos]

A reminder that there's still some time to for cross-fertilization of "cool
name" ideas, for the artist formerly known as the WCA:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Quest_for_the_Cool_Name

Thanks,
Richard
(User:Pharos)


On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 6:53 PM, Markus Glaser
wrote:

> Am 30.07.2013 00:48, schrieb Nathan:
>
>  The process for renaming the WCA is to be completed in two weeks?!
>> That seems totally at odds with its entire history, I wonder if it's
>> turning over a new leaf or if the selection will be subject to
>> criticism for not including enough people / giving sufficient months
>> or years for debate.
>>
> The WCA is on its way to become an agile organisation ;) The backdoor is:
> if we can't agree on a new name, we'll continue to operate as "WCA". So no
> harm is done either way.
>
> Seriously, I made the experience that people react to these kind of
> creative polls either at the beginning or at the end of the voting time. So
> we decided to just skip the time in between.
>
> Best,
> Markus
>
>
> --
> Markus Glaser
> WCA Council Member (WMDE), Chair
> Wikimedia Deutschland e.V.
>
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Communication plans for community engagement

[Romaine Wiki]

Hello Nathan, 

I have no anti-Americanism, I only notice some differences in the culture how 
communities from different continents work and to me that is natural. The only 
thing I say is that an organisation for a worldwide movement should reflect 
more that diversity. Not only in people, but only in ways of thinking. 
Before you wrote this mail I already knew where they were from, but people 
easily take over the culture of the organisation they work for.

There is a big protest and much critic on three major Wikipedias on how WMF 
handles the development and roll out of the VE, and as this seems to be not the 
first time the way of acting is worse, I try and would like to find out why 
this happens. Too often people from local communities do get the feeling they 
are not listened to by WMF, and I think that is terrible for an organisation 
that is there to support those people. I am certainly not surprised that less 
people participate in elections for board and so, people are demotivated on 
several ways.

If you have a better explanation please tell us, as it is good to name the 
problems and try to find solutions for it.


> and you should retract it so that others will
> continue to take your feedback seriously.

You make wrong conclusions out of the words I said, in a way you twist it so it 
doesn't match any more they way it was intended. (And you should know that I 
like the VE very much.)
How can you ask to retract it if you do not take it seriously already? You 
twist my words, you gave it a meaning which it originally did not had, that is 
what you consider as taking someones feedback seriously? No thank you. 

The past week I have been working on the localisation for Wiki Loves Monuments, 
and with that I see the differences between countries and between language 
areas. I like those differences, I try to respect them and try to take them 
into account. They have all the same goal in creating an encyclopaedia, but are 
all a bit different as no culture, language or country is the same. They all 
have a different history and way of looking. I think the best known situation 
where this appeared was the image filter, but there are many more smaller 
situations that differences are playing. For example on the Dutch Wikipedia 
there are every year discussions on how nl-wiki differs from other Wikipedias 
like en-wiki, and I see that happen on more Wikipedias. 

Sorry Nathan, I am disappointed that this reaction is the only thing you take 
out of my reply. Maybe my expectations are too high, I really thought serious 
feedback is appreciated, it is not me who experience this, but many others as 
well. What I would like to see and what I strive for is a better cooperation 
between WMF and communities.


Romaine

 
 --
 
 Date: Wed, 24 Jul 2013 09:11:06 -0400
 From: Nathan 
 To: Wikimedia Mailing List 
 Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Communication plans for
 community
     engagement
 
 On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 2:08 AM, Romaine Wiki 
 wrote:
 > In my opinion the liaisons failed very much with the
 VE, as they act like a car salesman who gives much the
 impression that communication is only in one direction: the
 community. They said they send our feedback to WMF but we
 haven't seen any results at all from that. After a month
 still all feedback was untouched, nothing was changed on all
 subjects we have given feedback on. Even critical bugs. I
 sure believe that the liaisons do their work, and that the
 problem lies in WMF itself, but still the liaisons became
 very much annoying. It is like they got a training to talk
 everything right or minimize the serious critic. I really
 hate such behaviour, to me and the rest of the community it
 is a signal that we aren't taken seriously. I consider the
 liaison involvement as a failure, certainly not recommended
 to repeat that in future this way.
 >
 > Besides that, with previous software changes we have
 had technical ambassadors who maintained mostly the feedback
 between developers and the communities and that worked well
 so far I can see. I seriously do not understand why they
 ignored them with the VE and instead hired liaisons which
 behaved more like staff of WMF with the agenda that they
 must sell the car, than neutral people who are involved in
 the local community. That is not the way how communities
 should be approached.
 >
 > Perhaps the gap between communities and WMF, already
 there in 2007, still hasn't become much closer since. I
 think the problem lies in the idea that the WMF is thinking
 top-down, while the communities work bottom-up (they do the
 actual daily work at the end). Also I notice for years that
 there is also a gap between North America and the rest of
 the world in culture, or at least certainly between North
 America and Europe. Both are part of the western culture,
 but still the way Americans deal with things is not the way
 Europeans would deal with. WMF

[Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor "temporary" opt-out

[Andrew Gray]

I very rarely want to follow up a post to say "yes, this", but I think Max
has hit the nail on the head here.

One other issue around 'heavy-handed' is that this is in part perception. I
didn't feel the deployment heavy-handed, but then it did not cause me more
than minor technical annoyance, I had tried to keep abreast of the
discussions and schedules leading up to the day, and I didn't object to it.
I know this is not a universally held feeling, of course!

A.



On Tuesday, August 6, 2013, MZMcBride wrote:

> Kevin Wayne Williams wrote:
> >Op 2013/08/05 19:35, MZMcBride schreef:
> >> Finally, and somewhat related to the complaints page, I've been
> >> thinking lately about the British and the Irish and the nature of
> >> insurgencies. I believe the VisualEditor team is now viewed by many on
> >> the English Wikipedia (and other wikis) as an occupying force.
> >> Consequently, this has created an insurgency composed of long-time
> >> editors. This isn't meant to be hyperbolic: nobody is rioting in the
> >> streets or planning warfare (yet). However, the anger felt by many in
> >> the editing community toward the VisualEditor team is very real and
> >> very worrying, as is the seemingly heavy-handed way in which
> >> VisualEditor has been deployed. Just a few weeks ago, VisualEditor was
> >> receiving accolades for the way in which it had been slowly and
> >> thoughtfully developed and deployed. However, seemingly arbitrary
> >> deadlines and a few key bad decisions have greatly hurt it. The wounds
> >> are deep, but it remains to be seen whether they will be fatal.
> >
> >I notice you used the phrase "seemingly heavy-handed" above. Do you
> >truly believe that this was not *actually* heavy-handed?
>
> Using "seemingly" twice so close together was certainly sloppy writing.
> :-)  I'll try to explain where I am currently.
>
> As with many things in life, I think whether the deployment of
> VisualEditor was heavy-handed depends on your perspective; mine is still
> forming. At , a
> few key issues/developments are discussed.
>
> There was a decision to deploy without an opt-out user preference,
> followed by a reversal of this decision and a re-instatement of the user
> preference.
>
> There was a decision to deploy with that awful section-edit animation,
> followed by its removal.
>
> At no point was the wikitext editor ever made unavailable to editors. And
> rhetoric and hyperbole aside, nobody was ever forced to use VisualEditor.
>
> The fact that the software is experimental ("beta") is now much more
> prominent throughout the user interface, the user interface now
> consistently uses "edit source," and the order of the tabs has been
> changed to make wikitext editing more prominent.
>
> With the points above, it's a mixed bag as to whether the deployment of
> VisualEditor was heavy-handed.
>
> This leaves us to consider the biggest question: opt-in vs. opt-out. Erik
> and James are both quite smart, they are true Wikimedians, and they make
> reasonable points about choosing opt-out over opt-in. However, a very
> large number of my colleagues and your colleagues have strongly disagreed
> with this decision, which leaves doubt in any reasonable person's mind.
>
> That said, this doubt is tempered by the _enormous_ selection bias we see
> in the on-wiki discussion. Namely that (a) the discussion has only been
> advertised to logged-in users, and (b) that nearly everyone participating
> in the on-wiki discussion is someone who has figured out wikitext. That
> is, the people who would most benefit from a visual editor right now are
> the silent majority who are unaware of, and in many cases incapable of,
> participating in the discussion about whether VisualEditor should be
> opt-in or opt-out. And in the on-wiki discussions, we've seen a lot of
> comments that are quite simply out-of-touch with the level to which people
> are capable of interacting with Wikipedia via wikitext editing alone.
>
> I used "seemingly" to indicate nuance. Any editor could easily look at the
> deployment fiasco and claim that it was heavy-handed and be right. But I
> think there's also a legitimate case to be made that, whether or not we
> agree with the decision, it was considered and backed by reasonable views.
>
> As I said on my talk page, I believe that we need a visual editor and an
> active group of people are trying to develop one (however haphazardly).
> Rather than simply attack and banish them, I think we should instead focus
> on ways to make it better or make it easier to get it out of the way of
> those who don't want to use it or can't use it.
>
> MZMcBride
>
>
>
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  andrew.g...@dunelm.org.u

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor "temporary" opt-out

[MZMcBride]

David Gerard wrote:
>That is, the arguments tend towards saying "you can't philosophically
>prove there aren't supporters!" This is unconvincing for a number of
>reasons.

This is lazy, but I'm going to quote myself.

---
VisualEditor is a big project that didn't simply happen in a vacuum. The
Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees (your Trustees) made it a top
priority, which is part of the reason that the Wikimedia Foundation made
it a top priority. Faced with a growing concern about editor retention and
the ability of anyone to be able to participate in the creation of the sum
of all human knowledge, a new endeavor was undertaken to make editing
easier for most users.

The _inability_ of many users to be able to contribute to the encyclopedia
(or the dictionary or the quote book or the ...) made this project a
necessity. While wikimarkup built Wikipedia and its sister projects,
there's a pretty prevalent view that wikimarkup alone cannot sustain it.
In 2013, there's an expectation on the part of users that there will be
some kind of visual editor (e.g., similar to that of WordPress), and so
the VisualEditor project was started in order to bring in such an editor,
side-by-side with the source editor.
---

I cannot and will not blame the Wikimedia Foundation for working on this
project. It's an important project and I believe this is a view that you
strongly agree with.

But it's similarly important that we recognize the current limitations to
on-wiki discussions and what we can glean from them.

MZMcBride



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