Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor temporary opt-out
Yes, the signal tends to be lost in the noise. Cheers, Peter - Original Message - From: Kevin Wayne Williams kwwilli...@kwwilliams.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org 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 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor temporary opt-out
Yes, it should be made clear that opt out will always be an acceptable user preference. On Aug 6, 2013 7:26 AM, Todd Allen toddmal...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 8:35 PM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Improvements to discuss actionable improvements that can be made right now related to VisualEditor and its deployment. Please participate. :-) And I started https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/VisualEditor/Complaints 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 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe 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
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor temporary opt-out
This perspective is not a productive one for building and maintaining a community. You need to have a better way of granting legitimacy to people's concerns while being able to discern histrionics. Generally the optimal easy is to have there be a pathway by which the complainants have to fix the problem to the satisfaction of their strongest opposition. On Aug 6, 2013 1:04 PM, Peter Southwood peter.southw...@telkomsa.net wrote: 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 kwwilli...@kwwilliams.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.**orgwikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org 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 kwwilli...@kwwilliams.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.**orgwikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org 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 kwwilli...@kwwilliams.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.**orgwikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org 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 __**_ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.**org Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/** mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-lhttps://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor temporary opt-out
Histrionics is generally not a productive policy either. It gets tedious after a while. Cheers Peter - Original Message - From: The Cunctator cuncta...@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Wednesday, August 07, 2013 6:54 PM Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor temporary opt-out This perspective is not a productive one for building and maintaining a community. You need to have a better way of granting legitimacy to people's concerns while being able to discern histrionics. Generally the optimal easy is to have there be a pathway by which the complainants have to fix the problem to the satisfaction of their strongest opposition. On Aug 6, 2013 1:04 PM, Peter Southwood peter.southw...@telkomsa.net wrote: 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 kwwilli...@kwwilliams.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.**orgwikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org 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 kwwilli...@kwwilliams.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.**orgwikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org 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 kwwilli...@kwwilliams.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.**orgwikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org 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
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor temporary opt-out
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 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/VisualEditor/Complaints, 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 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor temporary opt-out
On 6 August 2013 07:44, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: 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. This becomes the supporters of the gaps argument - in which it goes: 1. This is for the silent majority, the data will show they love it! You'll see! 2. Data comes out, seems to show they don't, and it's pushed anonymous editors down. 3. That data is bad, there could be supporters there! That is, the arguments tend towards saying you can't philosophically prove there aren't supporters! This is unconvincing for a number of reasons. - d. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor temporary opt-out
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 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
[Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor temporary opt-out
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 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/VisualEditor/Complaints, 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 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe -- - Andrew Gray andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor temporary opt-out
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 ... ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor temporary opt-out
On Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 8:35 PM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Improvements to discuss actionable improvements that can be made right now related to VisualEditor and its deployment. Please participate. :-) And I started https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/VisualEditor/Complaints 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 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe 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 really know anything about how to run the project many of them have
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor temporary opt-out
On Tue, Aug 6, 2013 at 3:10 PM, Richard Farmbrough rich...@farmbrough.co.uk 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 ... __**_ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.**org Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-lhttps://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@**lists.wikimedia.orgwikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org ?subject=**unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] 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 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor temporary opt-out
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. __**_ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.**org Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-lhttps://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@**lists.wikimedia.orgwikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org ?subject=**unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor temporary opt-out
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 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor temporary opt-out
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 __**_ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.**org Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-lhttps://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@**lists.wikimedia.orgwikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org ?subject=**unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor temporary opt-out
Do you have data to back up your claims? Peter - Original Message - From: Kevin Wayne Williams kwwilli...@kwwilliams.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org 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 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] 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 kwwilli...@kwwilliams.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org 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 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] 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 kwwilli...@kwwilliams.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org 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 kwwilli...@kwwilliams.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org 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 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor temporary opt-out
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 kwwilli...@kwwilliams.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org 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 kwwilli...@kwwilliams.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org 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 kwwilli...@kwwilliams.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org 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 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe
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 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor temporary opt-out
On Sun, Aug 4, 2013 at 7:07 PM, Todd Allen toddmal...@gmail.com wrote: I realize this was brought up a couple of weeks ago and I apologize for the late response on this, but it was just recently brought to my attention that the VE opt-out was intended to be only temporary. Firstly: Currently, as per the overwhelming consensus on en.wikipedia at least, VE needs to be opt-in, not opt-out. It's not even stable or usable to the beta stage, but it might be ready for some early user tests. Even beta testing, however, should only be opt-in. Opt-out should only occur once the product is feature-complete and has no (yes, zero) known major flaws or incomplete features. That means it should be capable of making -any- edit to -any- page, and in the manner that its user would want it to, including parsing, not no-wiki'ing, of wikimarkup, as the community has clearly stated. That aside, it's now come to my attention that the opt-out is meant to last only until the project is out of beta. There are some problems with this. First, your (and by your, I specifically mean the project managers) judgment on project readiness is obviously way off. VE isn't even -in- beta. It's not feature-complete, it's not ready, and it's got massive numbers of known bugs. It could be barely described as ready for alpha. Yet it's being treated as release-ready, such as being released as the default for most users. That calls into serious question the judgment of the project managers on this project. I, and many others, do not trust you to properly determine when this project should be released, as you've already made a hugely premature release of software that wasn't even near ready. Secondly, even if VE worked perfectly, some editors will never be interested in using it. An opt-out clarifies that the development team recognizes a significant group of those editors exists, and will ensure their wishes are respected. Some editors will just want raw-text editing, some will be running bots or scripts that depend on it, some just won't want to change, some will be doing tasks VE has been explicitly noted not to support. All must be respected, and raw editing must remain supported, not be squashed by yet another heavy-handed gesture from the same team that's already made far too many of those. I don't want to hear, in a year or two It works great! Source editing is deprecated and we'll be removing it soon!. And believe me, many of us, me included, expect just that, absent a firm commitment. Thirdly, a confirmation that VE will always include opt-out will clearly notify editors not interested in using it that it will always remain optional, and that source editing will remain supported. Currently, given the ram it through approach by WMF and its technical staff, such trust is severely eroded. A clear statement that You may always opt out of VE would go a long way toward rebuilding it, while You may only opt out while we say you can further erodes that already damaged trust. Please make a clear statement that VE will always have an officially supported opt-out for editors who would like to use it, not only during beta. Regards, Todd Allen This went into my spam-folder, along with other posts to Wikimedia-related lists lately. One quick comment on the content of Todd's e-mail - making VE opt-out is not synonymous with preserving the option to edit in raw text. If I understand correctly, the Edit source button (which is not the opt out) is going to remain. That means any editor, independent of VE status, retains the option to edit in the traditional manner. ~Nathan ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor temporary opt-out
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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Improvements to discuss actionable improvements that can be made right now related to VisualEditor and its deployment. Please participate. :-) And I started https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/VisualEditor/Complaints 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 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor temporary opt-out
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? KWW ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
[Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor temporary opt-out
I realize this was brought up a couple of weeks ago and I apologize for the late response on this, but it was just recently brought to my attention that the VE opt-out was intended to be only temporary. Firstly: Currently, as per the overwhelming consensus on en.wikipedia at least, VE needs to be opt-in, not opt-out. It's not even stable or usable to the beta stage, but it might be ready for some early user tests. Even beta testing, however, should only be opt-in. Opt-out should only occur once the product is feature-complete and has no (yes, zero) known major flaws or incomplete features. That means it should be capable of making -any- edit to -any- page, and in the manner that its user would want it to, including parsing, not no-wiki'ing, of wikimarkup, as the community has clearly stated. That aside, it's now come to my attention that the opt-out is meant to last only until the project is out of beta. There are some problems with this. First, your (and by your, I specifically mean the project managers) judgment on project readiness is obviously way off. VE isn't even -in- beta. It's not feature-complete, it's not ready, and it's got massive numbers of known bugs. It could be barely described as ready for alpha. Yet it's being treated as release-ready, such as being released as the default for most users. That calls into serious question the judgment of the project managers on this project. I, and many others, do not trust you to properly determine when this project should be released, as you've already made a hugely premature release of software that wasn't even near ready. Secondly, even if VE worked perfectly, some editors will never be interested in using it. An opt-out clarifies that the development team recognizes a significant group of those editors exists, and will ensure their wishes are respected. Some editors will just want raw-text editing, some will be running bots or scripts that depend on it, some just won't want to change, some will be doing tasks VE has been explicitly noted not to support. All must be respected, and raw editing must remain supported, not be squashed by yet another heavy-handed gesture from the same team that's already made far too many of those. I don't want to hear, in a year or two It works great! Source editing is deprecated and we'll be removing it soon!. And believe me, many of us, me included, expect just that, absent a firm commitment. Thirdly, a confirmation that VE will always include opt-out will clearly notify editors not interested in using it that it will always remain optional, and that source editing will remain supported. Currently, given the ram it through approach by WMF and its technical staff, such trust is severely eroded. A clear statement that You may always opt out of VE would go a long way toward rebuilding it, while You may only opt out while we say you can further erodes that already damaged trust. Please make a clear statement that VE will always have an officially supported opt-out for editors who would like to use it, not only during beta. Regards, Todd Allen ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
