+1 to Steven's skepticism. I also shared some more concerns on the talk page.
In theory, the Flow project is meant to tackle discussions + workflows. In practice, I've made a conscious effort to shift the focus to discussion first and foremost, which I feel is a way more pressing issue (practically and ideologically). I'm open to hearing other people's take on why automated or semi-automated workflows are equally or more critical, but I'm going to push for a lot more user-centered detail, because I don't feel like I've seen a compelling rationale for how, specifically, this is going to benefit our end-users. If fr-tech needs a workflow engine for its own purposes (Adam, maybe you could provide us with more background on what purposes those are?), that's totally cool and fine and you guys should build one – but let's be careful not to end up in the "when you're holding a hammer, everything looks like a nail" situation :)
On Wed, Sep 11, 2013 at 9:28 AM, Steven Walling swalling@wikimedia.orgwrote:
I added product designers (i.e. anyone making software for users) as a stakeholder.
I am very very very very very very skeptical of this whole workflow language idea. What began as the need for better localization of tools like PageCuration, and a vague but promising idea about using ContentHandler to help give pages more structure, has morphed in to a convoluted and over-architected idea. And that goes for whether the particulars come from fundraising or product or design etc.
I could go on more of a rant here, but suffice it to say I think we're missing a compelling rationale for why we need a workflow language. I commented as much on the Talk page.
On Wed, Sep 11, 2013 at 12:36 AM, Terry Chay tchay@wikimedia.org wrote:
Begin forwarded message:
*From: *Adam Wight awight@wikimedia.org *Subject: **Rough draft of Workflow design* *Date: *September 10, 2013 5:11:56 PM PDT *To: *Maryana Pinchuk mpinchuk@wikimedia.org, fr-tech < fr-tech@wikimedia.org>, Terry Chay tchay@wikimedia.org
Hi, I've outlined some thoughts about how to design a workflow engine, at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/RFC/Workflow
My main concern is that we produce something that is appropriate for general on-wiki use, and for Fundraising's internal needs.
Please review, Thanks! Adam
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