Separate thread.  I'm not sure which list is appropriate.
*... but not all the way to sentience
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Uplift_War>.*

The annual community wishlist survey (implemented by a small team, possibly
in isolation?) may not be the mechanism for prioritizing large changes, but
the latter also deserves a community-curated priority queue.  To complement
the staff-maintained priorities in phab ~

For core challenges (like Commons stability and capacity), I'd be surprised
if the bottleneck were people or budget.  We do need a shared understanding
of what issues are most important and most urgent, and how to solve them.
For instance, a way to turn Amir's recent email about the problem (and
related phab tickets) into a family of persistent, implementable specs and
proposals and their articulated obstacles.

An issue tracker like phab is good for tracking the progress and
dependencies of agreed-upon tasks, but weak for discussing what is
important, what we know about it, how to address it. And weak for
discussing ecosystem-design issues that are important and need persistent
updating but don't have a simple checklist of steps.

So where is the best current place to discuss scaling Commons, and all that
entails?  Some examples from recent discussions (most from the wm-l thread
below):
- *Uploads*: Support for large file uploads / Keeping bulk upload tools
online
- *Video*: Debugging + rolling out the videojs
<https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T248418> player
- *Formats*: Adding support for CML
<https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T18491> and dozens of other
<https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T297514> common high-demand file formats
- *Thumbs*: Updating thumbor <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T216815>
and librsvg <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T193352>
- *Search*: WCQS still <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T297454> down
<https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T297454>, noauth option
<https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T297995> wanted for tools
- *General*: Finish implementing redesign
<https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T28741> of the image table

SJ

On Wed, Dec 29, 2021 at 6:26 AM Amir Sarabadani <ladsgr...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm not debating your note. It is very valid that we lack proper support
> for multimedia stack. I myself wrote a detailed rant on how broken it is
> [1] but three notes:
>  - Fixing something like this takes time, you need to assign the budget
> for it (which means it has to be done during the annual planning) and if
> gets approved, you need to start it with the fiscal year (meaning July
> 2022) and then hire (meaning, write JD, do recruitment, interview lots of
> people, get them hired) which can take from several months to years. Once
> they are hired, you need to onboard them and let them learn about our
> technical infrastructure which takes at least two good months. Software
> engineering is not magic, it takes time, blood and sweat. [2]
>  - Making another team focus on multimedia requires changes in planning,
> budget, OKR, etc. etc. Are we sure moving the focus of teams is a good
> idea? Most teams are already focusing on vital parts of wikimedia and
> changing the focus will turn this into a whack-a-mole game where we fix
> multimedia but now we have critical issues in security or performance.
>  - Voting Wishlist survey is a good band-aid in the meantime. To at least
> address the worst parts for now.
>
> I don't understand your point tbh, either you think it's a good idea to
> make requests for improvements in multimedia in the wishlist survey or you
> think it's not. If you think it's not, then it's offtopic to this thread.
>
> [1]
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/WMPZHMXSLQJ6GONAVTFLDFFMPNJDVORS/
> [2] There is a classic book in this topic called "The Mythical Man-month"
>
> On Wed, Dec 29, 2021 at 11:41 AM Gnangarra <gnanga...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> we have to vote for regular maintenance and support for
>> essential functions like uploading files which is the core mission of
>> Wikimedia Commons
>>
>
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