Ryan, My thoughts (from a sister project side)
It is useful to go through a few bits to manage expectations. * General introductory information around the scope, expected outcomes, summary of what wikis can do and general dates and for this to be placed at the Techblog. This allows local wikis to know and prepare. As the importance rises, I think that a general sitenotice for a week is appropriate. Is it possible to do a site notice for admins only? As that would be most useful. [This lets those who are alert into the playpen and involved] * A place where the detail of the project and outcomes, and how to participate, and where to advise (aka complain) where and when things stop working, or help is needed. If you are planning to go through series of wikis, then if there is a timetable to which people can prepare, or even be available to help, and how they can help. [This empowers people and puts the emphasis on them to get themselves organised for your timetable, your time being the limited factor] * Where you are planning on doing work, having generic information at your local talk page about who you are and that points them to the information pages (general and detail), to the fact that they had been told it was going to happen and to where they should bitch and complain. [Akin to TALK TO THE HAND] While admins will always be protective of their patch, especially if something breaks universally, none of us wishes to impede progress and we want to know how we can help. -> Make us do our homework -> Give us time to marshal resources, and -> Have expectations that we should be organised to help. If we cannot do that, then it is somewhat upon our heads if you have to do what you have to do. Expectations and activities need to be reasonable and practical to both parties. Regards, Andrew <- CSS clueless beyond the basics On 1 Apr 2011 at 17:11, Ryan Kaldari wrote: > Can you possibly get any more hyperbolic? For your information, I've > been trying to clean up the Javascript of en.wiktionary.org this past > week, which is a total nightmare (and it's a sister project!). If you'd > like to help, feel free to join the discussions: > http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Common.js > http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary_talk:Per-browser_preferences#Proposal_to_migrate_into_a_user_scripts_library > > Ryan Kaldari > > On 4/1/11 4:51 PM, MZMcBride wrote: > > Ryan Kaldari wrote: > >> Yeah, the local CSS/JS cruft is definitely a problem. I've tried doing > >> clean-up on a few wikis, but I usually just get chewed out by the local > >> admins for not discussing every change in detail (which obviously > >> doesn't scale for fixing 200+ wikis). I would love to hear ideas for how > >> to address this problem. > > This caught my eye as Wikimedia has far more than 200 wikis. There seems to > > be a shift happening within the Wikimedia Foundation. The sister projects > > have routinely been ignored in the past, but things seem to be going further > > lately.... > > > > Personally, I'm in favor of disbanding all of the projects that Wikimedia > > has no intention of actively supporting in the near-future or even mid-range > > future. I think the current situation in which certain sister projects are > > supported in name only is unacceptable to the users and to the public. > > > > MZMcBride > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Wikitech-l mailing list > > [email protected] > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l > > > _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
