On 7/1/2011 2:32 PM, Thomas Morton wrote:
Very little discussion ocurrred r.e. rolling this out. For example no trial
was offered, no "Request for Comment" was taken to guage community opinion.
I know these are our processes and a significant part of the blame lies with
the editors - but even so announcement of the feature suddenly seemed to
"appear"on-wiki the day before :) (that may not be an accurate picture - but
for most that is how it appeared).
It was only *after* deployment that is was explained that the extension is
amazing customisable on-wiki (a really thoughtful idea. You guys need to
write more extensions like this, awesome stuff). So, more miscommunication.
I've seen this happen before numerous times - Wiki does something. Or a dev
does something. There is miscommunication and people who would probably see
eye-to-eye are growling at each other across tables. The established Wiki
editors feel put out and the developers feel under-appreciated (did I
mention: WikiLove guys!). [Ironically *the same problem* is a big part of
the editor retention issue on-wiki]
Personally, I don't see why "community discussion" and "consensus"
is
required for each and every change or addition to the software.
Sometimes, bold action is truly the only way to move the encyclopedia
forward, especially in the face of those who generally don't like
change. Many times, the community in general does hold back many
additional innovations the developers may come up with solely for the
sake of "process". This article parallels such conflict between
"process" and "development":
http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/05/process-kills-developer-passion.html
-MuZemike