---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Rainer Rillke rainerrillke@hotmail.com Date: 17 May 2014 22:55 Subject: [Wikitech-l] Deployments of new, radically different default features To: wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Recently, Media Viewer[1] (MMV) has been switched at Wikimedia Commons to be default.
As some people do not care a lot for beta features or new features, do not read the mailing lists and overlook main discussion forums or are just unable to understand English, they were surprised and confused and wondered how they could disable the feature.
Please help me to evaluate if there are alternatives to how software deployment is currently done. Here are some suggestions from community member Jameslwoodward (commons adminstrator):
A Post a banner so that there is a good chance of actually reaching everyone. B Ensure that the internally referenced help page actually has correct information. C Major changes can be the default for new users, but should be opt-in for existing users.
I think (A) could be partially done by tech-ambassadors (what a difficult word); however when deploying something like MMV to all wikis, isn't this worth a CentralNotice?
(B) is as obvious as important. Outdated information is confusing. Make sure to update your help pages before going to release your software to the wild. Or delay the release until this is done.
Suggestion (C) is interesting, although perhaps technically difficult to implement. If a feature that one experienced as anonymous user is good [login cookies expire, ...], or one explicitly tested the feature or was told by a fellow about a good feature, it is very likely that one will enable that feature for the account, too. People will do this freely. Without complaining. And people, who intentionally enabled a feature, usually have a positive attitude, are willing to help and improve the feature. They will provide you with constructive feedback. The overall atmosphere would be a lot more positive than that we currently experience with new tools, *the power users do not need*. So why not actively promoting a feature until there is a critical mass using it? It may take a lot of time but I think it's worth a test.
A personal appeal: Please care about the power users [2]. They are the core and foundation of the WMF projects. They create the content; manage most issues - think about the OTRS team - in their spare time, ... so WMF can finally run the fundraiser banners and you can get your payment.
-- Rillke
[1] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Multimedia/Media_Viewer [2] http://www.aswedeingermany.de/50SoftwareDevelopment/20MostImportantRuleOfUID...
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