Hello everyone,
I am pleased to share with you the news about the formation of the latest team in the Technology department, the MediaWiki Platform team![1]
The MediaWiki Platform team will be tasked with leading maintenance and improvements related to the core MediaWiki platform codebase. That includes encouraging future development of the MediaWiki platform and addressing the technical debt that has accumulated during the 15-year history of MediaWiki.
MediaWiki is an amazing, powerful, and complex open-source software platform. The number and variety of extensions, and the wide variety of communities who have adopted MediaWiki as their method for knowledge collection and dissemination, are a testament to its strength as a software platform.
Like any significant codebase with a long development history, there are remnants of design choices and experiments that are no longer in use, and some areas of code are in need of modernization. However, at its core is a large amount of highly functional, secure, performant code, capable of supporting a robust platform through the use of extensions and hooks. There is also a great amount of flexibility to adapt to new requirements.
This team will have a more focused purpose than the previous MediaWiki Core team.[2]. While the previous team was at times spread too thin, many areas are now covered by dedicated teams like Security and Performance. The new MediaWiki Platform team will center their efforts on the core codebase. The team will also have a dedicated Product Manager who will be creating the platform roadmap in collaboration with the team, the Architecture Committee and the MediaWiki user community.
Specific goals for this team are to:
* Assist and encourage development of features for MediaWiki by providing developers with a strong core.
* Undertake feature development work which is primarily architectural in nature.
* Facilitate the development and publication of MediaWiki's roadmap to assist coordination between internal and external users.
* Maintain and promote guidelines and standards for the MediaWiki core.
I am thrilled that Tim Starling has agreed to lead the team, reporting directly to me. He will be joined by Brion Vibber, Kunal Mehta and Brad Jorsch. The team officially launches on Monday April 3, and will complete the hiring and onboarding of additional team members in the coming months. Their initial workplan will include core support for multi content revisions for the Structured Data on Commons project and will be discussed in more detail during the upcoming consultation for the Wikimedia Foundation 2017-2018 annual plan.
I am excited by this latest evolution in the structure of the Foundation's Engineering group. We will continue to learn from our collective knowledge and expertise, and make adjustments to our composition and plans. I appreciate the input provided by many in the community that helped inform this decision. I also want to thank the members of the Wikimedia Foundation's Product, Technology, and Community Engagement departments who were involved in this process. In particular, I would like to thank Toby Negrin, Adam Baso, and Trevor Parscal - whose support was critical in bringing this plan together.
Join me in welcoming and celebrating our new team!
Victoria
[1] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_Platform_team https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_Platform_team [2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_MediaWiki_Core_Team https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_MediaWiki_Core_Team
Hey,
Like any significant codebase with a long development history, there are
remnants of design choices and experiments that are no longer in use, and some areas of code are in need of modernization. However, at its core is a large amount of highly functional, secure, performant code, capable of supporting a robust platform through the use of extensions and hooks. There is also a great amount of flexibility to adapt to new requirements.
This makes it sound like the MediaWiki codebase is pretty well designed. That is in stark contrast to my view, which is that it is a typical big ball of mud with serious pervasive issues too numerous to list. So I'm curious how you arrived at your view.
...
The stated goals and lineup strike me as very WMF, and something I've seen often enough before. What makes you think the results will not be poor leadership and disastrous technical results (in my estimation costing WMF many millions of USD) like in the past? What will be different this time?
Cheers
-- Jeroen De Dauw | https://entropywins.wtf | https://keybase.io/jeroendedauw Software craftsmanship advocate ~=[,,_,,]:3
Hi Jeroen,
I don't know whether you realize how confrontational your email sounds, and how difficult it is to start a friendly and constructive conversation with such beginning. Since this is an open, welcoming, and friendly mailing list, I ask you please to consider this important factor in future communications.
The MediaWiki codebase powers one of the top Internet websites and thousands more, with a wide variety of use cases. It also supports APIs, extensions, gadgets, templates and more, allowing for the development of very different features and usages. Nobody denies that the MediaWiki codebase needs attention and focused work, in fact this is why this team is being created, but there must be something good in it that made it arrive to this point.
It is difficult to agree or disagree with your blunt and very vague critique. Still, at the end you ask a good question: what will be different this time?
Reading https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_Platform_team there is one sentence that shows what in my humble opinion is a key difference:
Our approach recognizes that MediaWiki is a product in its own right and
deserves a dedicated
roadmap, product manager, and engineering team with a sense of product
ownership.
The initial team has four developers that know the MediaWiki codebase very well, and a dedicated product manager is being hired https://boards.greenhouse.io/wikimedia/jobs/613548?gh_src=1u385n1#.WOI0pogxAt0. It has been a while since these developers or anyone could work full time maintaining MediaWiki core as a whole. The page also mentions a focus on paying off technical debt, on working on platform dependencies of Community Wishlist wishes, on treating feature development teams as customers... and I don't recall any of these being an explicit goal in the past.
I think all this is great news. I am looking forward to see the new team in action, and the first results of their work.
On Mon, Apr 3, 2017 at 12:35 AM Jeroen De Dauw jeroendedauw@gmail.com wrote:
This makes it sound like the MediaWiki codebase is pretty well designed. That is in stark contrast to my view, which is that it is a typical big ball of mud with serious pervasive issues too numerous to list. So I'm curious how you arrived at your view.
As opposed to Wikibase, which is a collection of well-designed components which nobody (outside of its development team) knows how they are held together to form a cohesive product. My guess has always been magic and/or prayers.
Something something glass houses & stones.
-Chad
Out of interest, will this 'platform team' only work to serve Wikimedia or the wider MediaWiki user community?
One of my vices with the WMF/mediawiki is that development is to benefit the WMF.
The WMF uses a number of extensions which are highly sought after by those wanting to set up their own wikis (SecurePoll, CentralAuth, Site Matrix, etc) but provides no support for them, says they are only for WMF but released anyway, and unless you know PHP, those extensions are locked off.
I don't feel like the WMFs goal to openly share knowledge applies in these cases, and development of MediaWiki isn't to support the wider community of users.
On 3 Apr 2017, at 02:16 pm, "Chad" innocentkiller@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Apr 3, 2017 at 12:35 AM Jeroen De Dauw jeroendedauw@gmail.com wrote:
This makes it sound like the MediaWiki codebase is pretty well designed. That is in stark contrast to my view, which is that it is a typical big ball of mud with serious pervasive issues too numerous to list. So I'm curious how you arrived at your view.
As opposed to Wikibase, which is a collection of well-designed components which nobody (outside of its development team) knows how they are held together to form a cohesive product. My guess has always been magic and/or prayers.
Something something glass houses & stones.
-Chad _______________________________________________ MediaWiki-l mailing list To unsubscribe, go to: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
We'll be primarily working on things for Wikimedia -- that's what people donate to WMF to support -- but part of what we want to do is to provide a clearer development roadmap which we expect to be helpful to third-party users, and clearer points of contact for getting things done.
At this time there are no plans I'm aware of for providing explicit third-party support contracting from within WMF (as in, paying people to provide custom installation support, custom development, prioritization of custom bug fixes, or explicitly lobbying to get particular custom development or ideas merged into core that aren't focused on Wikimedia needs). I think this would be great to do, but it's just not on the table for now.
I would strongly encourage any interested and enterprising people who might wish to perform such work to organize themselves to provide such custom services directly to people who need them and work with us on that roadmap & future core development.
-- brion
On Mon, Apr 3, 2017 at 7:28 AM, Jasmine Smith jassmith55@outlook.com wrote:
Out of interest, will this 'platform team' only work to serve Wikimedia or the wider MediaWiki user community?
One of my vices with the WMF/mediawiki is that development is to benefit the WMF.
The WMF uses a number of extensions which are highly sought after by those wanting to set up their own wikis (SecurePoll, CentralAuth, Site Matrix, etc) but provides no support for them, says they are only for WMF but released anyway, and unless you know PHP, those extensions are locked off.
I don't feel like the WMFs goal to openly share knowledge applies in these cases, and development of MediaWiki isn't to support the wider community of users.
On 3 Apr 2017, at 02:16 pm, "Chad" innocentkiller@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Apr 3, 2017 at 12:35 AM Jeroen De Dauw jeroendedauw@gmail.com wrote:
This makes it sound like the MediaWiki codebase is pretty well designed. That is in stark contrast to my view, which is that it is a typical big ball of mud with serious pervasive issues too numerous to list. So I'm curious how you arrived at your view.
As opposed to Wikibase, which is a collection of well-designed components which nobody (outside of its development team) knows how they are held together to form a cohesive product. My guess has always been magic
and/or
prayers.
Something something glass houses & stones.
-Chad _______________________________________________ MediaWiki-l mailing list To unsubscribe, go to: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
MediaWiki-l mailing list To unsubscribe, go to: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
Great to know. I am looking forward at a team to whom volunteer devs can ask to review their patchsets to mediawiki-core and its extensions without an indefinite ETA! (probably I read the team goals wrong).
Thanks, Tony Thomas https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:01tonythomas
On Mon, Apr 3, 2017 at 8:35 PM, Brion Vibber bvibber@wikimedia.org wrote:
We'll be primarily working on things for Wikimedia -- that's what people donate to WMF to support -- but part of what we want to do is to provide a clearer development roadmap which we expect to be helpful to third-party users, and clearer points of contact for getting things done.
At this time there are no plans I'm aware of for providing explicit third-party support contracting from within WMF (as in, paying people to provide custom installation support, custom development, prioritization of custom bug fixes, or explicitly lobbying to get particular custom development or ideas merged into core that aren't focused on Wikimedia needs). I think this would be great to do, but it's just not on the table for now.
I would strongly encourage any interested and enterprising people who might wish to perform such work to organize themselves to provide such custom services directly to people who need them and work with us on that roadmap & future core development.
-- brion
On Mon, Apr 3, 2017 at 7:28 AM, Jasmine Smith jassmith55@outlook.com wrote:
Out of interest, will this 'platform team' only work to serve Wikimedia
or
the wider MediaWiki user community?
One of my vices with the WMF/mediawiki is that development is to benefit the WMF.
The WMF uses a number of extensions which are highly sought after by
those
wanting to set up their own wikis (SecurePoll, CentralAuth, Site Matrix, etc) but provides no support for them, says they are only for WMF but released anyway, and unless you know PHP, those extensions are locked
off.
I don't feel like the WMFs goal to openly share knowledge applies in
these
cases, and development of MediaWiki isn't to support the wider community
of
users.
On 3 Apr 2017, at 02:16 pm, "Chad" innocentkiller@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Apr 3, 2017 at 12:35 AM Jeroen De Dauw <jeroendedauw@gmail.com
wrote:
This makes it sound like the MediaWiki codebase is pretty well
designed.
That is in stark contrast to my view, which is that it is a typical
big
ball of mud with serious pervasive issues too numerous to list. So I'm curious how you arrived at your view.
As opposed to Wikibase, which is a collection of well-designed
components
which nobody (outside of its development team) knows how they are held together to form a cohesive product. My guess has always been magic
and/or
prayers.
Something something glass houses & stones.
-Chad _______________________________________________ MediaWiki-l mailing list To unsubscribe, go to: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
MediaWiki-l mailing list To unsubscribe, go to: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
MediaWiki-l mailing list To unsubscribe, go to: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
On Mon, Apr 3, 2017 at 11:55 AM, Tony Thomas 01tonythomas@gmail.com wrote:
Great to know. I am looking forward at a team to whom volunteer devs can ask to review their patchsets to mediawiki-core and its extensions without an indefinite ETA! (probably I read the team goals wrong).
We will try to be much more aggressive about patch review too, yes. :)
-- brion
Thanks, Tony Thomas https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:01tonythomas
On Mon, Apr 3, 2017 at 8:35 PM, Brion Vibber bvibber@wikimedia.org wrote:
We'll be primarily working on things for Wikimedia -- that's what people donate to WMF to support -- but part of what we want to do is to provide
a
clearer development roadmap which we expect to be helpful to third-party users, and clearer points of contact for getting things done.
At this time there are no plans I'm aware of for providing explicit third-party support contracting from within WMF (as in, paying people to provide custom installation support, custom development, prioritization
of
custom bug fixes, or explicitly lobbying to get particular custom development or ideas merged into core that aren't focused on Wikimedia needs). I think this would be great to do, but it's just not on the table for now.
I would strongly encourage any interested and enterprising people who
might
wish to perform such work to organize themselves to provide such custom services directly to people who need them and work with us on that
roadmap
& future core development.
-- brion
On Mon, Apr 3, 2017 at 7:28 AM, Jasmine Smith jassmith55@outlook.com wrote:
Out of interest, will this 'platform team' only work to serve Wikimedia
or
the wider MediaWiki user community?
One of my vices with the WMF/mediawiki is that development is to
benefit
the WMF.
The WMF uses a number of extensions which are highly sought after by
those
wanting to set up their own wikis (SecurePoll, CentralAuth, Site
Matrix,
etc) but provides no support for them, says they are only for WMF but released anyway, and unless you know PHP, those extensions are locked
off.
I don't feel like the WMFs goal to openly share knowledge applies in
these
cases, and development of MediaWiki isn't to support the wider
community
of
users.
On 3 Apr 2017, at 02:16 pm, "Chad" innocentkiller@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Apr 3, 2017 at 12:35 AM Jeroen De Dauw <
jeroendedauw@gmail.com
wrote:
This makes it sound like the MediaWiki codebase is pretty well
designed.
That is in stark contrast to my view, which is that it is a typical
big
ball of mud with serious pervasive issues too numerous to list. So
I'm
curious how you arrived at your view.
As opposed to Wikibase, which is a collection of well-designed
components
which nobody (outside of its development team) knows how they are
held
together to form a cohesive product. My guess has always been magic
and/or
prayers.
Something something glass houses & stones.
-Chad _______________________________________________ MediaWiki-l mailing list To unsubscribe, go to: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
MediaWiki-l mailing list To unsubscribe, go to: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
MediaWiki-l mailing list To unsubscribe, go to: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
MediaWiki-l mailing list To unsubscribe, go to: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
He brion,
Maybe there could some day be a program, where an external company could propose items to place on the roadmap, with the promise that they will deliver a developer to collaborate on that item if the platform chooses to prioritize it. Like a Community tech wishlist in exchange for mutual dedication to the task.
DJ
On Mon, Apr 3, 2017 at 8:35 PM, Brion Vibber bvibber@wikimedia.org wrote:
We'll be primarily working on things for Wikimedia -- that's what people donate to WMF to support -- but part of what we want to do is to provide a clearer development roadmap which we expect to be helpful to third-party users, and clearer points of contact for getting things done.
At this time there are no plans I'm aware of for providing explicit third-party support contracting from within WMF (as in, paying people to provide custom installation support, custom development, prioritization of custom bug fixes, or explicitly lobbying to get particular custom development or ideas merged into core that aren't focused on Wikimedia needs). I think this would be great to do, but it's just not on the table for now.
I would strongly encourage any interested and enterprising people who might wish to perform such work to organize themselves to provide such custom services directly to people who need them and work with us on that roadmap & future core development.
-- brion
On Mon, Apr 3, 2017 at 7:28 AM, Jasmine Smith jassmith55@outlook.com wrote:
Out of interest, will this 'platform team' only work to serve Wikimedia
or
the wider MediaWiki user community?
One of my vices with the WMF/mediawiki is that development is to benefit the WMF.
The WMF uses a number of extensions which are highly sought after by
those
wanting to set up their own wikis (SecurePoll, CentralAuth, Site Matrix, etc) but provides no support for them, says they are only for WMF but released anyway, and unless you know PHP, those extensions are locked
off.
I don't feel like the WMFs goal to openly share knowledge applies in
these
cases, and development of MediaWiki isn't to support the wider community
of
users.
On 3 Apr 2017, at 02:16 pm, "Chad" innocentkiller@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Apr 3, 2017 at 12:35 AM Jeroen De Dauw <jeroendedauw@gmail.com
wrote:
This makes it sound like the MediaWiki codebase is pretty well
designed.
That is in stark contrast to my view, which is that it is a typical
big
ball of mud with serious pervasive issues too numerous to list. So I'm curious how you arrived at your view.
As opposed to Wikibase, which is a collection of well-designed
components
which nobody (outside of its development team) knows how they are held together to form a cohesive product. My guess has always been magic
and/or
prayers.
Something something glass houses & stones.
-Chad _______________________________________________ MediaWiki-l mailing list To unsubscribe, go to: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
MediaWiki-l mailing list To unsubscribe, go to: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
MediaWiki-l mailing list To unsubscribe, go to: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
Hi all,
there is already a list of requested features which was distilled out of a survey the MediaWiki Stakeholders' Group conducted a while ago [1]. We are currently looking for funding by companies or other interested parties to get items on this list done. However, to be honest, it's hard to convince someone to fund a feature when it is totally unclear whether it makes its way into the product after development.
This is why I am very delighted to hear about the formation of the Platform Team, as there is now a team to coordinate with. At the very least, the team adds predictability to the development of the core platform, which is something extremely valuable for third party maintainers. I also read it as a statement of the Foundation, that MediaWiki, as a software product, will be taken care of in the forseeable future. This is encouraging and something to build on. I have best hopes that it will become way easier now for external parties to contribute to MediaWiki. The Stakeholders' Group is happy to play its part here.
All the best for the new team,
Markus User:Mglaser MediaWiki Stakeholders' Group http://mwstake.org
[1] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_Stakeholders%27_Group/Tasks/Feature...
-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- Von: MediaWiki-l [mailto:mediawiki-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] Im Auftrag von Derk-Jan Hartman Gesendet: Montag, 3. April 2017 22:53 An: MediaWiki announcements and site admin list mediawiki-l@lists.wikimedia.org Betreff: Re: [MediaWiki-l] Introducing the MediaWiki Platform Team!
He brion,
Maybe there could some day be a program, where an external company could propose items to place on the roadmap, with the promise that they will deliver a developer to collaborate on that item if the platform chooses to prioritize it. Like a Community tech wishlist in exchange for mutual dedication to the task.
DJ
On Mon, Apr 3, 2017 at 8:35 PM, Brion Vibber bvibber@wikimedia.org wrote:
We'll be primarily working on things for Wikimedia -- that's what people donate to WMF to support -- but part of what we want to do is to provide a clearer development roadmap which we expect to be helpful to third-party users, and clearer points of contact for getting things done.
At this time there are no plans I'm aware of for providing explicit third-party support contracting from within WMF (as in, paying people to provide custom installation support, custom development, prioritization of custom bug fixes, or explicitly lobbying to get particular custom development or ideas merged into core that aren't focused on Wikimedia needs). I think this would be great to do, but it's just not on the table for now.
I would strongly encourage any interested and enterprising people who might wish to perform such work to organize themselves to provide such custom services directly to people who need them and work with us on that roadmap & future core development.
-- brion
On Mon, Apr 3, 2017 at 7:28 AM, Jasmine Smith jassmith55@outlook.com wrote:
Out of interest, will this 'platform team' only work to serve Wikimedia
or
the wider MediaWiki user community?
One of my vices with the WMF/mediawiki is that development is to benefit the WMF.
The WMF uses a number of extensions which are highly sought after by
those
wanting to set up their own wikis (SecurePoll, CentralAuth, Site Matrix, etc) but provides no support for them, says they are only for WMF but released anyway, and unless you know PHP, those extensions are locked
off.
I don't feel like the WMFs goal to openly share knowledge applies in
these
cases, and development of MediaWiki isn't to support the wider community
of
users.
On 3 Apr 2017, at 02:16 pm, "Chad" innocentkiller@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Apr 3, 2017 at 12:35 AM Jeroen De Dauw <jeroendedauw@gmail.com
wrote:
This makes it sound like the MediaWiki codebase is pretty well
designed.
That is in stark contrast to my view, which is that it is a typical
big
ball of mud with serious pervasive issues too numerous to list. So I'm curious how you arrived at your view.
As opposed to Wikibase, which is a collection of well-designed
components
which nobody (outside of its development team) knows how they are held together to form a cohesive product. My guess has always been magic
and/or
prayers.
Something something glass houses & stones.
-Chad _______________________________________________ MediaWiki-l mailing list To unsubscribe, go to: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
MediaWiki-l mailing list To unsubscribe, go to: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
MediaWiki-l mailing list To unsubscribe, go to: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
_______________________________________________ MediaWiki-l mailing list To unsubscribe, go to: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
I think that given the interests of the team members, we have a good chance of improving support for non-WMF users.
Brion and I spent countless hours as volunteers in the early days, working to make MediaWiki into a viable installable product. Brion wrote the first web installer, and I wrote most of the current one. We answered questions on #mediawiki from all comers, responded to bug reports, and did tarball releases. So we're both invested in seeing this thing work.
Kunal Mehta is working for us part time. He is also involved in the MW Stakeholders Group, and administers non-WMF wikis.
On 04/04/17 04:35, Brion Vibber wrote:
We'll be primarily working on things for Wikimedia -- that's what people donate to WMF to support [...]
Yes, revenue is a big part of why it is a tough sell with WMF management. And in the past when I have spoken about raising revenue from MW users, there were concerns about mission creep.
We can certainly work on things that benefit both WMF and non-WMF users of MediaWiki. It may even be possible for us to prioritize such tasks.
On the other hand, we will be refactoring, and there will be deprecations. So extension developers, especially out-of-tree extension developers, might have some extra work to do to keep up with core.
-- Tim Starling
Jasmine Smith jassmith55@outlook.com writes:
I don't feel like the WMFs goal to openly share knowledge applies in these cases, and development of MediaWiki isn't to support the wider community of users.
You should come join us (the MediaWiki Stakeholders).
We have a room on Phabricator[1] and will be meeting this Friday online[2]. I would welcome you and any others who want to participate in this WMF-affiliated user group of third-party MediaWiki users.
I think you'll see we share many of your concerns, but we're using our relationship with the WMF to make our concerns known.
For example, we met with Victoria Coleman and others from the WMF this January at the Wikimedia Developer Summit[3] and had a very productive conversation. I'd like to think that parts of Ms. Coleman's recent announcement were influenced by that meeting.
Markus Glaser and I were at WMCon[4] this past weekend and I will be writing up a report about that probably later today.
I hope to see you in #mwstake!
Mark.
Footnotes: [1] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/conpherence/245/
[2] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/E336
[3] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Developer_Summit/2017
[4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2017
Hi Mark,
Your second link goes to a 404 with the very Zen message, "Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment."
By the way, I'd be interested in reading your WMCON report, and I might want to join the MW user group this summer. Do you have an organization and/or communications repository for reports and membership information?
Thanks,
Pine
On Tue, Apr 4, 2017 at 6:37 AM, Mark A. Hershberger mah@nichework.com wrote:
Jasmine Smith jassmith55@outlook.com writes:
I don't feel like the WMFs goal to openly share knowledge applies in these cases, and development of MediaWiki isn't to support the wider community of users.
You should come join us (the MediaWiki Stakeholders).
We have a room on Phabricator[1] and will be meeting this Friday online[2]. I would welcome you and any others who want to participate in this WMF-affiliated user group of third-party MediaWiki users.
I think you'll see we share many of your concerns, but we're using our relationship with the WMF to make our concerns known.
For example, we met with Victoria Coleman and others from the WMF this January at the Wikimedia Developer Summit[3] and had a very productive conversation. I'd like to think that parts of Ms. Coleman's recent announcement were influenced by that meeting.
Markus Glaser and I were at WMCon[4] this past weekend and I will be writing up a report about that probably later today.
I hope to see you in #mwstake!
Mark.
Footnotes: [1] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/conpherence/245/
[2] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/E336
[3] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Developer_Summit/2017
[4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2017
-- Mark A. Hershberger NicheWork LLC 717-271-1084
MediaWiki-l mailing list To unsubscribe, go to: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
Hey Pine, you're likely not logged in, the link is working fine for me - unless when I log out, which will get me this 404 message. It seems that Phabricator events are open to "All Users" (everybody logged in) by default, but not "Public" (including not logged in users). At the moment that needs to be changed in the task settings manually.
Best, Eddie
Am 05.04.2017 um 01:56 schrieb Pine W:
Hi Mark,
Your second link goes to a 404 with the very Zen message, "Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment."
By the way, I'd be interested in reading your WMCON report, and I might want to join the MW user group this summer. Do you have an organization and/or communications repository for reports and membership information?
Thanks,
Pine
On Tue, Apr 4, 2017 at 6:37 AM, Mark A. Hershberger mah@nichework.com wrote:
Jasmine Smith jassmith55@outlook.com writes:
I don't feel like the WMFs goal to openly share knowledge applies in these cases, and development of MediaWiki isn't to support the wider community of users.
You should come join us (the MediaWiki Stakeholders).
We have a room on Phabricator[1] and will be meeting this Friday online[2]. I would welcome you and any others who want to participate in this WMF-affiliated user group of third-party MediaWiki users.
I think you'll see we share many of your concerns, but we're using our relationship with the WMF to make our concerns known.
For example, we met with Victoria Coleman and others from the WMF this January at the Wikimedia Developer Summit[3] and had a very productive conversation. I'd like to think that parts of Ms. Coleman's recent announcement were influenced by that meeting.
Markus Glaser and I were at WMCon[4] this past weekend and I will be writing up a report about that probably later today.
I hope to see you in #mwstake!
Mark.
Footnotes: [1] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/conpherence/245/
[2] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/E336
[3] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Developer_Summit/2017
[4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2017
-- Mark A. Hershberger NicheWork LLC 717-271-1084
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Hey,
I'd like to clarify two points about my previous email:
1. it is purely my own personal opinion. It is loose from any of the MediaWiki related projects I am "involved" with.
2. The questions I asked are not meant as criticism on the concept of having a core platform team, treating MediaWiki as a product, or improving the design and quality of the MediaWiki codebase. I think all of these are good ideas and hope WMF is very successful in pursuing them. This is why I'm asking hard questions about problems that I perceive to seriously undermine the chances of meeting the stated goals.
Cheers
-- Jeroen De Dauw | https://entropywins.wtf | https://keybase.io/jeroendedauw Software craftsmanship advocate ~=[,,_,,]:3
On 3 April 2017 at 09:34, Jeroen De Dauw jeroendedauw@gmail.com wrote:
Hey,
Like any significant codebase with a long development history, there are
remnants of design choices and experiments that are no longer in use, and some areas of code are in need of modernization. However, at its core is a large amount of highly functional, secure, performant code, capable of supporting a robust platform through the use of extensions and hooks. There is also a great amount of flexibility to adapt to new requirements.
This makes it sound like the MediaWiki codebase is pretty well designed. That is in stark contrast to my view, which is that it is a typical big ball of mud with serious pervasive issues too numerous to list. So I'm curious how you arrived at your view.
...
The stated goals and lineup strike me as very WMF, and something I've seen often enough before. What makes you think the results will not be poor leadership and disastrous technical results (in my estimation costing WMF many millions of USD) like in the past? What will be different this time?
Cheers
-- Jeroen De Dauw | https://entropywins.wtf | https://keybase.io/jeroendedauw Software craftsmanship advocate ~=[,,_,,]:3
We use MediaWiki for almost everything in our company and it feels great to hear this news.
I hope there is process setup for external users of MediaWiki to contribute ideas and code in a more streamlined manner.
Regards, Nischay
On Apr 2, 2017 8:52 PM, "Victoria Coleman" vcoleman@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello everyone,
I am pleased to share with you the news about the formation of the latest team in the Technology department, the MediaWiki Platform team![1]
The MediaWiki Platform team will be tasked with leading maintenance and improvements related to the core MediaWiki platform codebase. That includes encouraging future development of the MediaWiki platform and addressing the technical debt that has accumulated during the 15-year history of MediaWiki.
MediaWiki is an amazing, powerful, and complex open-source software platform. The number and variety of extensions, and the wide variety of communities who have adopted MediaWiki as their method for knowledge collection and dissemination, are a testament to its strength as a software platform.
Like any significant codebase with a long development history, there are remnants of design choices and experiments that are no longer in use, and some areas of code are in need of modernization. However, at its core is a large amount of highly functional, secure, performant code, capable of supporting a robust platform through the use of extensions and hooks. There is also a great amount of flexibility to adapt to new requirements.
This team will have a more focused purpose than the previous MediaWiki Core team.[2]. While the previous team was at times spread too thin, many areas are now covered by dedicated teams like Security and Performance. The new MediaWiki Platform team will center their efforts on the core codebase. The team will also have a dedicated Product Manager who will be creating the platform roadmap in collaboration with the team, the Architecture Committee and the MediaWiki user community.
Specific goals for this team are to:
* Assist and encourage development of features for MediaWiki by providing developers with a strong core.
* Undertake feature development work which is primarily architectural in nature.
* Facilitate the development and publication of MediaWiki's roadmap to assist coordination between internal and external users.
* Maintain and promote guidelines and standards for the MediaWiki core.
I am thrilled that Tim Starling has agreed to lead the team, reporting directly to me. He will be joined by Brion Vibber, Kunal Mehta and Brad Jorsch. The team officially launches on Monday April 3, and will complete the hiring and onboarding of additional team members in the coming months. Their initial workplan will include core support for multi content revisions for the Structured Data on Commons project and will be discussed in more detail during the upcoming consultation for the Wikimedia Foundation 2017-2018 annual plan.
I am excited by this latest evolution in the structure of the Foundation's Engineering group. We will continue to learn from our collective knowledge and expertise, and make adjustments to our composition and plans. I appreciate the input provided by many in the community that helped inform this decision. I also want to thank the members of the Wikimedia Foundation's Product, Technology, and Community Engagement departments who were involved in this process. In particular, I would like to thank Toby Negrin, Adam Baso, and Trevor Parscal - whose support was critical in bringing this plan together.
Join me in welcoming and celebrating our new team!
Victoria
[1] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_Platform_team < https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_Platform_team%3E [2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_MediaWiki_Core_Team < https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_MediaWiki_Core_Team%3E _______________________________________________ MediaWiki-l mailing list To unsubscribe, go to: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
Thank you Nischay. The Product Manager of the MediaWiki Platform team will be responsible for the features the team will work on. Quim's team will also provide support as a place to coordinate the roadmap with the external developer community. Looking forward to working with everyone!
Best regards,
Victoria
Sent from my iPhone
On Apr 3, 2017, at 1:46 PM, Nischay Nahata nischayn22@gmail.com wrote:
We use MediaWiki for almost everything in our company and it feels great to hear this news.
I hope there is process setup for external users of MediaWiki to contribute ideas and code in a more streamlined manner.
Regards, Nischay
On Apr 2, 2017 8:52 PM, "Victoria Coleman" vcoleman@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello everyone,
I am pleased to share with you the news about the formation of the latest team in the Technology department, the MediaWiki Platform team![1]
The MediaWiki Platform team will be tasked with leading maintenance and improvements related to the core MediaWiki platform codebase. That includes encouraging future development of the MediaWiki platform and addressing the technical debt that has accumulated during the 15-year history of MediaWiki.
MediaWiki is an amazing, powerful, and complex open-source software platform. The number and variety of extensions, and the wide variety of communities who have adopted MediaWiki as their method for knowledge collection and dissemination, are a testament to its strength as a software platform.
Like any significant codebase with a long development history, there are remnants of design choices and experiments that are no longer in use, and some areas of code are in need of modernization. However, at its core is a large amount of highly functional, secure, performant code, capable of supporting a robust platform through the use of extensions and hooks. There is also a great amount of flexibility to adapt to new requirements.
This team will have a more focused purpose than the previous MediaWiki Core team.[2]. While the previous team was at times spread too thin, many areas are now covered by dedicated teams like Security and Performance. The new MediaWiki Platform team will center their efforts on the core codebase. The team will also have a dedicated Product Manager who will be creating the platform roadmap in collaboration with the team, the Architecture Committee and the MediaWiki user community.
Specific goals for this team are to:
- Assist and encourage development of features for MediaWiki by providing
developers with a strong core.
- Undertake feature development work which is primarily architectural in
nature.
- Facilitate the development and publication of MediaWiki's roadmap to
assist coordination between internal and external users.
- Maintain and promote guidelines and standards for the MediaWiki core.
I am thrilled that Tim Starling has agreed to lead the team, reporting directly to me. He will be joined by Brion Vibber, Kunal Mehta and Brad Jorsch. The team officially launches on Monday April 3, and will complete the hiring and onboarding of additional team members in the coming months. Their initial workplan will include core support for multi content revisions for the Structured Data on Commons project and will be discussed in more detail during the upcoming consultation for the Wikimedia Foundation 2017-2018 annual plan.
I am excited by this latest evolution in the structure of the Foundation's Engineering group. We will continue to learn from our collective knowledge and expertise, and make adjustments to our composition and plans. I appreciate the input provided by many in the community that helped inform this decision. I also want to thank the members of the Wikimedia Foundation's Product, Technology, and Community Engagement departments who were involved in this process. In particular, I would like to thank Toby Negrin, Adam Baso, and Trevor Parscal - whose support was critical in bringing this plan together.
Join me in welcoming and celebrating our new team!
Victoria
[1] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_Platform_team < https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_Platform_team%3E [2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_MediaWiki_Core_Team < https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_MediaWiki_Core_Team%3E _______________________________________________ MediaWiki-l mailing list To unsubscribe, go to: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l _______________________________________________ MediaWiki-l mailing list To unsubscribe, go to: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
Question, will the 'new features' mainly benefit the wider MediaWiki community or the wikimedia foundation?
Are site owners able to request features?
Jasmine.
On 3 Apr 2017, at 07:16 pm, "Victoria Coleman" vcoleman@wikimedia.org wrote:
Thank you Nischay. The Product Manager of the MediaWiki Platform team will be responsible for the features the team will work on. Quim's team will also provide support as a place to coordinate the roadmap with the external developer community. Looking forward to working with everyone!
Best regards,
Victoria
Sent from my iPhone
On Apr 3, 2017, at 1:46 PM, Nischay Nahata nischayn22@gmail.com wrote:
We use MediaWiki for almost everything in our company and it feels great to hear this news.
I hope there is process setup for external users of MediaWiki to contribute ideas and code in a more streamlined manner.
Regards, Nischay
On Apr 2, 2017 8:52 PM, "Victoria Coleman" vcoleman@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello everyone,
I am pleased to share with you the news about the formation of the latest team in the Technology department, the MediaWiki Platform team![1]
The MediaWiki Platform team will be tasked with leading maintenance and improvements related to the core MediaWiki platform codebase. That includes encouraging future development of the MediaWiki platform and addressing the technical debt that has accumulated during the 15-year history of MediaWiki.
MediaWiki is an amazing, powerful, and complex open-source software platform. The number and variety of extensions, and the wide variety of communities who have adopted MediaWiki as their method for knowledge collection and dissemination, are a testament to its strength as a software platform.
Like any significant codebase with a long development history, there are remnants of design choices and experiments that are no longer in use, and some areas of code are in need of modernization. However, at its core is a large amount of highly functional, secure, performant code, capable of supporting a robust platform through the use of extensions and hooks. There is also a great amount of flexibility to adapt to new requirements.
This team will have a more focused purpose than the previous MediaWiki Core team.[2]. While the previous team was at times spread too thin, many areas are now covered by dedicated teams like Security and Performance. The new MediaWiki Platform team will center their efforts on the core codebase. The team will also have a dedicated Product Manager who will be creating the platform roadmap in collaboration with the team, the Architecture Committee and the MediaWiki user community.
Specific goals for this team are to:
- Assist and encourage development of features for MediaWiki by providing
developers with a strong core.
- Undertake feature development work which is primarily architectural in
nature.
- Facilitate the development and publication of MediaWiki's roadmap to
assist coordination between internal and external users.
- Maintain and promote guidelines and standards for the MediaWiki core.
I am thrilled that Tim Starling has agreed to lead the team, reporting directly to me. He will be joined by Brion Vibber, Kunal Mehta and Brad Jorsch. The team officially launches on Monday April 3, and will complete the hiring and onboarding of additional team members in the coming months. Their initial workplan will include core support for multi content revisions for the Structured Data on Commons project and will be discussed in more detail during the upcoming consultation for the Wikimedia Foundation 2017-2018 annual plan.
I am excited by this latest evolution in the structure of the Foundation's Engineering group. We will continue to learn from our collective knowledge and expertise, and make adjustments to our composition and plans. I appreciate the input provided by many in the community that helped inform this decision. I also want to thank the members of the Wikimedia Foundation's Product, Technology, and Community Engagement departments who were involved in this process. In particular, I would like to thank Toby Negrin, Adam Baso, and Trevor Parscal - whose support was critical in bringing this plan together.
Join me in welcoming and celebrating our new team!
Victoria
[1] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_Platform_team < https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_Platform_team%3E [2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_MediaWiki_Core_Team < https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_MediaWiki_Core_Team%3E _______________________________________________ MediaWiki-l mailing list To unsubscribe, go to: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l _______________________________________________ MediaWiki-l mailing list To unsubscribe, go to: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
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On 4 April 2017 at 05:43, Jasmine Smith jassmith55@outlook.com wrote:
Question, will the 'new features' mainly benefit the wider MediaWiki community or the wikimedia foundation?
Are site owners able to request features?
Jasmine.
Site owners have always been able to suggest new features by submitting tasks on our task tracking system, which can be found at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/
I think, and that's my personal opinion based on my personal feelings and the things written here already: something like "kind of". First of all: you can already propose any feature you want using phabricator. Based on these features, a paid developer or even a volunteer developer will start working on it (or discussing) or not.
I think, that the new platform team will have an eye on the things in phabricator, too, however, I think that they will mainly work on features that benefit the WMF.
In addition to the review of patches things: I highly appreciate this and hope that this will heavily decrease the time for a core patch to get a review :) And I think that this can be an opportunity for all of us, volunteers, other companies and third parties and everyone else to get new, well-formed and developed features into MediaWiki. There's no need that all features has to be implemented by a paid WMF Developer. We all can (more or less) easily create a Gerrit Account and propose changes, and there's mostly no reason to prevent a good patch from being merged. So, I think it would be great, if more features and good patches would arrive from outside and then be reviewed by the new platform team (or even volunteers) :) so, don't ask for features, write them yourself! (Don't vote me on that :P)
Best, Florian
-----Original Message----- Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2017 21:43:29 +0200 Subject: Re: [MediaWiki-l] Introducing the MediaWiki Platform Team! From: Jasmine Smith jassmith55@outlook.com To: MediaWiki announcements and site admin list mediawiki-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Question, will the 'new features' mainly benefit the wider MediaWiki community or the wikimedia foundation?
Are site owners able to request features?
Jasmine.
On 3 Apr 2017, at 07:16 pm, "Victoria Coleman"
vcoleman@wikimedia.org wrote:
Thank you Nischay. The Product Manager of the MediaWiki Platform team
will be responsible for the features the team will work on. Quim's team will also provide support as a place to coordinate the roadmap with the external developer community. Looking forward to working with everyone!
Best regards,
Victoria
Sent from my iPhone
On Apr 3, 2017, at 1:46 PM, Nischay Nahata nischayn22@gmail.com
wrote:
We use MediaWiki for almost everything in our company and it feels
great to
hear this news.
I hope there is process setup for external users of MediaWiki to
contribute
ideas and code in a more streamlined manner.
Regards, Nischay
On Apr 2, 2017 8:52 PM, "Victoria Coleman" vcoleman@wikimedia.org
wrote:
Hello everyone,
I am pleased to share with you the news about the formation of the
latest
team in the Technology department, the MediaWiki Platform team![1]
The MediaWiki Platform team will be tasked with leading maintenance
and
improvements related to the core MediaWiki platform codebase. That
includes
encouraging future development of the MediaWiki platform and
addressing the
technical debt that has accumulated during the 15-year history of
MediaWiki.
MediaWiki is an amazing, powerful, and complex open-source software platform. The number and variety of extensions, and the wide variety
of
communities who have adopted MediaWiki as their method for knowledge collection and dissemination, are a testament to its strength as a
software
platform.
Like any significant codebase with a long development history, there
are
remnants of design choices and experiments that are no longer in use,
and
some areas of code are in need of modernization. However, at its core
is a
large amount of highly functional, secure, performant code, capable
of
supporting a robust platform through the use of extensions and hooks.
There
is also a great amount of flexibility to adapt to new requirements.
This team will have a more focused purpose than the previous
MediaWiki Core
team.[2]. While the previous team was at times spread too thin, many
areas
are now covered by dedicated teams like Security and Performance. The
new
MediaWiki Platform team will center their efforts on the core
codebase. The
team will also have a dedicated Product Manager who will be creating
the
platform roadmap in collaboration with the team, the Architecture
Committee
and the MediaWiki user community.
Specific goals for this team are to:
- Assist and encourage development of features for MediaWiki by
providing
developers with a strong core.
- Undertake feature development work which is primarily architectural
in
nature.
- Facilitate the development and publication of MediaWiki's roadmap
to
assist coordination between internal and external users.
- Maintain and promote guidelines and standards for the MediaWiki
core.
I am thrilled that Tim Starling has agreed to lead the team,
reporting
directly to me. He will be joined by Brion Vibber, Kunal Mehta and
Brad
Jorsch. The team officially launches on Monday April 3, and will
complete
the hiring and onboarding of additional team members in the coming
months.
Their initial workplan will include core support for multi content revisions for the Structured Data on Commons project and will be
discussed
in more detail during the upcoming consultation for the Wikimedia Foundation 2017-2018 annual plan.
I am excited by this latest evolution in the structure of the
Foundation's
Engineering group. We will continue to learn from our collective
knowledge
and expertise, and make adjustments to our composition and plans. I appreciate the input provided by many in the community that helped
inform
this decision. I also want to thank the members of the Wikimedia Foundation's Product, Technology, and Community Engagement
departments who
were involved in this process. In particular, I would like to thank
Toby
Negrin, Adam Baso, and Trevor Parscal - whose support was critical in bringing this plan together.
Join me in welcoming and celebrating our new team!
Victoria
[1] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_Platform_team < https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_Platform_team%3E [2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_MediaWiki_Core_Team < https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_MediaWiki_Core_Team%3E _______________________________________________ MediaWiki-l mailing list To unsubscribe, go to: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l _______________________________________________ MediaWiki-l mailing list To unsubscribe, go to: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
MediaWiki-l mailing list To unsubscribe, go to: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
_______________________________________________ MediaWiki-l mailing list To unsubscribe, go to: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
Victoria Coleman vcoleman@wikimedia.org writes:
I am pleased to share with you the news about the formation of the latest team in the Technology department, the MediaWiki Platform team![1]
Thank you!
- Assist and encourage development of features for MediaWiki by
providing developers with a strong core.
- Facilitate the development and publication of MediaWiki's roadmap to
assist coordination between internal and external users.
- Maintain and promote guidelines and standards for the MediaWiki core.
I'm extremely grateful to see these three items in the list. The people chosen for the team (Tim, Brion, Kunal, Brad) are excellent choices and I'm confident that, with your direction and empowerment, they have the ability to fulfill these goals.
This is something that we (the MediaWiki Stakeholders) have been asking for and I'm very, very thankful that Ms. Coleman is implementing this.
Thank again!
mediawiki-l@lists.wikimedia.org