+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(a)wikimedia.org>wrote;wrote:
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(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
Begin forwarded message:
*From: *Adam Wight <awight(a)wikimedia.org>
*Subject: **Rough draft of Workflow design*
*Date: *September 10, 2013 5:11:56 PM PDT
*To: *Maryana Pinchuk <mpinchuk(a)wikimedia.org>rg>, fr-tech <
fr-tech(a)wikimedia.org>gt;, Terry Chay <tchay(a)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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