This is the exact kind of attitude the op-ed in the Signpost is addressing. When making major feature decision, such as redoing the entire templating system, we cannot just say to editors "oh, if you want some input, go and join our mailing list". That's just a passive-aggressive way of pushing editors out of the conversation. How many purely editors, i.e., not developers, are on this list actively participating in discussion?
And this isn't a technical decision, it's a requirements decision. We're not deciding what algorithm to use, or what object design to implement, we're deciding what features would be best for the users of Wikipedia. The reason this extension was implemented (hopefully) was so that users could have a better templating experience, but how can you possibly assume to know what is best for the user without asking the users themselves? And no, we cannot be expected to consult every language wiki, but on the other hand we cannot completely ignore the community and suddenly launch this new extension on them as if they'd known about it for years. *--* *Tyler Romeo* Stevens Institute of Technology, Class of 2015 Major in Computer Science www.whizkidztech.com | [email protected] On Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 3:38 PM, Ryan Lane <[email protected]> wrote: > > But there's a difference between an issue and a solution. Yes, the > > templating system is broken, and I'm sure many an editor will confirm > that, > > but just because a system is broken does not mean Lua is automatically > the > > solution. To put it in other words: just because people want a better > > templating system does not imply they want Lua. What discussion, if any, > > has there been that WMF wikis want Lua as their templating replacement. > As > > said before, mediawiki.org is mostly developers, so there's no problem > with > > that, but with the op-ed on the Signpost, we should seriously question > > whether the community wants this feature before randomly forcing it on > > them. > > > > Which community should be consulted on this technical decision? What > if enwiki wants prolog and dewiki wants lua and enwikitionary wants > javascript? Occasionally technical decisions have to be made by the > developers. The templating language is a technical decision. It's > really not something that is up for editor community debate. > > This decision was hashed out over months (really a couple of years if > we consider the original iteration of this idea) with the developer > community. If the editor community wishes to take part in these kinds > of decisions, they should join wikitech-l. > > - Ryan > > _______________________________________________ > 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
