Hello, I can second more or less everything what Magnus said, and hope that the discussion about how to implement software improvements will go on in a productive way. I totally agree with Magnus and many others that these improvements are very much necessary - just think of Wikimedia Commons.
On one point I would like to mention what could be a serious cause for disagreement between "the Foundation" and "the community" (both aren't monolithic). Sometimes I experience that paid collaborators of the WMF or chapters perceive "the community" as a huge workforce, a steerable resource without limits, that can be made use of. When the VE was introduced in 2013, some people from the WMF might have thought: "the community" has unlimited time to clean up the mess that is temporarily created by the VE. Using that resource is better than to wait with the introduction, as software development is costly. But "the community" was unhappy to serve as beta testers and cleaning personnel, certainly without having been asked. Adding insult to injury, during the VE introduction of 2013, one WMF collaborator said on a talk page: Don't forget your resistance is burning a lot of money. - It is a little strange to tell this to the people who are creating the income by their volunteer work. With regard to the Media Viewer, in 2014, my opinion was different: the MV worked fairly well, serving to readers and to newbies. As long as I can turn it off (because it is rather slowing down my workflow than support it) I am happy with it. Neither "the Foundation", neither "the community" is always right (or always wrong). It's that simple. Kind regards Ziko 2016-01-19 18:53 GMT+01:00 Pine W <wiki.p...@gmail.com>: > As it happens, I now like both VE and Image Viewer as optional features. I > didn't appreciate how they were deployed. > > The constitutional crisis that WMF created by using Superprotect to force > Image VIewer on the communities was arrogant, disproportionate, politically > unwise, and wasteful. Although WMF has backed off from this position a bit, > it has never apologized for it AFAIK, and this is one in a number of > experiences that is informing the community thinking about strategic > alternatives to WMF. > > Let me contrast this with Echo, which had some initial pains but was > accepted by the community with relative ease. It's still one of my favorite > features, and I look forward to its continued development. > > Piine > > On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 9:00 AM, Anthony Cole <ahcole...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> Magnus, regarding, "...at some point, you have to leave the test >> environment, and test your product against reality." >> >> Of course. But VE was far, far too bad for real time when it was released. >> Really. It was driving newbies away. The sensible embracers-of-change threw >> it out, in the end. The squealing Ludites don't have the numbers for that. >> When the sensible majority starts squealing, the developers really need to >> pay attention. >> >> I didn't follow it carefully but it seemed to me the release of the Image >> Viewer was much better timed and handled. Ludites squealed but genuine >> concerns were addressed promptly and respectfully. >> >> Anthony Cole >> >> > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > New messages to: 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, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
