Pulling the Commons app - Mobile-l

Dan Garry

9 Sep 9 Sep

4:10 a.m.

On 6 September 2014 15:40, Derk-Jan Hartman <d.j.hartman+wmf_ml(a)gmail.com> wrote:

I propose we remove the Wikimedia Commons app from the store. Clearly there is no time available to work on it, there is no one maintaining it or following up on the problems that have been reported since 2013.

Thanks for the suggestion. Practically speaking, maintaining this app would mean cannibalising resources currently devoted to the Wikipedia app. Brion and Yuvi are the engineers with the most experience in the Commons app. They're currently split a few different ways (Brion with his duties as an architect, Yuvi with duties to ops) and I'm not eager to split them even further. Some framing on userbases: The Commons Android app is installed on around 7,000 devices, compared to the 10 million devices with the Wikipedia app installed on it. The Commons app gets around 300 users per month, and there are more edits than that from the Wikipedia app per day to the English Wikipedia alone. The Commons app user base is minuscule compared to the Wikipedia app. Remember that sunsetting the app and removing it from the store would not uninstall it from the devices it's currently installed on, so those people using it would be able to do so. Also, the code would continue to be available, so if someone wanted to clean it up as a volunteer we could then re-publish it easily enough. So, in summary, I agree with DJ. Thoughts, team? Dan -- Dan Garry Associate Product Manager, Mobile Apps Wikimedia Foundation

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Bernd Sitzmann

10:34 p.m.

I agree. It should be pulled from both the store and disabled on translatewiki.net. On Mon, Sep 8, 2014 at 9:54 PM, Monte Hurd <mhurd(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

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I think it should be pulled. On Sep 8, 2014, at 7:10 PM, Dan Garry <dgarry(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: On 6 September 2014 15:40, Derk-Jan Hartman <d.j.hartman+wmf_ml(a)gmail.com> wrote:

I propose we remove the Wikimedia Commons app from the store. Clearly there is no time available to work on it, there is no one maintaining it or following up on the problems that have been reported since 2013.

Thanks for the suggestion. Practically speaking, maintaining this app would mean cannibalising resources currently devoted to the Wikipedia app. Brion and Yuvi are the engineers with the most experience in the Commons app. They're currently split a few different ways (Brion with his duties as an architect, Yuvi with duties to ops) and I'm not eager to split them even further. Some framing on userbases: The Commons Android app is installed on around 7,000 devices, compared to the 10 million devices with the Wikipedia app installed on it. The Commons app gets around 300 users per month, and there are more edits than that from the Wikipedia app per day to the English Wikipedia alone. The Commons app user base is minuscule compared to the Wikipedia app. Remember that sunsetting the app and removing it from the store would not uninstall it from the devices it's currently installed on, so those people using it would be able to do so. Also, the code would continue to be available, so if someone wanted to clean it up as a volunteer we could then re-publish it easily enough. So, in summary, I agree with DJ. Thoughts, team? Dan -- Dan Garry Associate Product Manager, Mobile Apps Wikimedia Foundation _______________________________________________ Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l _______________________________________________ Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l

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Erik Moeller

9:02 p.m.

On Wed, Sep 10, 2014 at 11:57 AM, Dan Garry <dgarry(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

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There's nothing to preclude a volunteer maintainer from taking over ownership of it and republishing it

Sounds good from my end. IMO it'd be great to have a standard way to do this (handle trademark permissions / branding) in cases of community-created/maintained tools that are published through the app stores, since it'll come up again (and did before with the WLM app, kind of). But we can solve for it in this case if there's actually someone who wants to take it over. -- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation

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Dan Garry

16 Sep 16 Sep

9:14 p.m.

I think it's now time to say goodbye to the Commons app. We bid you adieu, Commons app. *wipes tear from eye* Let's unpublish the app in both the App Store and Google Play. Dan On 10 September 2014 16:24, Dan Garry <dgarry(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

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On 10 September 2014 12:02, Erik Moeller <erik(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

Sounds good from my end. IMO it'd be great to have a standard way to do this (handle trademark permissions / branding) in cases of community-created/maintained tools that are published through the app stores, since it'll come up again (and did before with the WLM app, kind of). But we can solve for it in this case if there's actually someone who wants to take it over.

Howie and I did briefly discuss using this as a testbed for app sunsetting, but we decided against it as the nature of an app (static code on a remote device) makes it difficult to do things like banners announcing the app is being sunset unless you thought of it ahead of time (which wasn't the case for any of our apps). I think the best bet for us here is to document the process as we go, then see what our pain points were and figure out how the process could be improved in the future. Thanks, Dan -- Dan Garry Associate Product Manager, Mobile Apps Wikimedia Foundation

-- Dan Garry Associate Product Manager, Mobile Apps Wikimedia Foundation

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Brion Vibber

10:32 p.m.

*queue sad bagpipes* Ok, I've killed the iOS version as well. Note that the way one does this in the current version of iTunes Connect is: * select the app from the list of apps * go into "Pricing" * select which territories to be for sale in * hit "deselect all" * save It will no longer be available for download but it won't disappear from peoples' devices, as I understand. -- brion On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 12:14 PM, Dan Garry <dgarry(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

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I think it's now time to say goodbye to the Commons app. We bid you adieu, Commons app. *wipes tear from eye* Let's unpublish the app in both the App Store and Google Play. Dan On 10 September 2014 16:24, Dan Garry <dgarry(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

On 10 September 2014 12:02, Erik Moeller <erik(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

Sounds good from my end. IMO it'd be great to have a standard way to do this (handle trademark permissions / branding) in cases of community-created/maintained tools that are published through the app stores, since it'll come up again (and did before with the WLM app, kind of). But we can solve for it in this case if there's actually someone who wants to take it over.

Howie and I did briefly discuss using this as a testbed for app sunsetting, but we decided against it as the nature of an app (static code on a remote device) makes it difficult to do things like banners announcing the app is being sunset unless you thought of it ahead of time (which wasn't the case for any of our apps). I think the best bet for us here is to document the process as we go, then see what our pain points were and figure out how the process could be improved in the future. Thanks, Dan -- Dan Garry Associate Product Manager, Mobile Apps Wikimedia Foundation

-- Dan Garry Associate Product Manager, Mobile Apps Wikimedia Foundation _______________________________________________ Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l

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Tomasz Finc

7:51 p.m.

Dan and Dmitry, Can you take care of this? --tomasz On Wed, Sep 17, 2014 at 12:59 AM, Andre Klapper <aklapper(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

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On Tue, 2014-09-16 at 13:32 -0700, Brion Vibber wrote:

Ok, I've killed the iOS version as well.

There's a "Commons App" product in bugzilla.wikimedia.org with 213 tickets, 82 of them open. There is also an "Unofficial Apps" product in Bugzilla: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/describecomponents.cgi?product=Unofficial%20… What would you like to see happen in Bugzilla? Move tickets from 'Commons App' to a new component under 'Unofficial'? All lowest priority? Should Brion really be default assignee for all those 'Unofficial' tickets? andre -- Andre Klapper | Wikimedia Bugwrangler http://blogs.gnome.org/aklapper/ _______________________________________________ Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l

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Brion Vibber

7:47 p.m.

Sounds like the right thing to do, yeah. I believe we can close the product to new bugs fairly easily. -- brion On Thursday, September 18, 2014, Dan Garry <dgarry(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

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On the one hand, if we WONTFIX all the bugs and remove the component, we've got a clean break. It makes it clear that we are not officially supporting the app now. On the other hand, if we leave the bugs open, it would make it easier for a community maintainer to pick up where we left off and take over maintenance. But, it would suck to have people still reporting issues with the expectation that they'll be fixed, when there's no chance we'll look at them. I think we should WONTFIX the bugs and prevent the filing of new bugs against the Commons app somehow, so that people can't file new ones with the expectation of fixes. But all the WONTFIXed bugs should remain in Bugzilla so a community maintainer can access them if he desires. Unless there are any objections or better ideas, I'll ask Andre to implement something to this effect on Monday. Dan On 17 September 2014 00:59, Andre Klapper <aklapper(a)wikimedia.org <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','aklapper@wikimedia.org');>> wrote:

On Tue, 2014-09-16 at 13:32 -0700, Brion Vibber wrote:

Ok, I've killed the iOS version as well.

There's a "Commons App" product in bugzilla.wikimedia.org with 213 tickets, 82 of them open. There is also an "Unofficial Apps" product in Bugzilla: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/describecomponents.cgi?product=Unofficial%20… What would you like to see happen in Bugzilla? Move tickets from 'Commons App' to a new component under 'Unofficial'? All lowest priority? Should Brion really be default assignee for all those 'Unofficial' tickets? andre -- Andre Klapper | Wikimedia Bugwrangler http://blogs.gnome.org/aklapper/ _______________________________________________ Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org');> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l

-- Dan Garry Associate Product Manager, Mobile Apps Wikimedia Foundation

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Dan Garry

10:37 p.m.

I believe I have now WONTFIXed all open bugs filed against the Commons app. Dan On 22 September 2014 13:06, Dan Garry <dgarry(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

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It's now Monday, and there have been no objections or better ideas! So let's implement this plan. I've asked Andre to prevent the filing of more bugs against the Commons app. I will now start WONTFIXing the remaining open bugs, explaining that we're not maintaining the app any more. Thanks, Dan On 18 September 2014 10:47, Brion Vibber <bvibber(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

Sounds like the right thing to do, yeah. I believe we can close the product to new bugs fairly easily. -- brion On Thursday, September 18, 2014, Dan Garry <dgarry(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

On the one hand, if we WONTFIX all the bugs and remove the component, we've got a clean break. It makes it clear that we are not officially supporting the app now. On the other hand, if we leave the bugs open, it would make it easier for a community maintainer to pick up where we left off and take over maintenance. But, it would suck to have people still reporting issues with the expectation that they'll be fixed, when there's no chance we'll look at them. I think we should WONTFIX the bugs and prevent the filing of new bugs against the Commons app somehow, so that people can't file new ones with the expectation of fixes. But all the WONTFIXed bugs should remain in Bugzilla so a community maintainer can access them if he desires. Unless there are any objections or better ideas, I'll ask Andre to implement something to this effect on Monday. Dan On 17 September 2014 00:59, Andre Klapper <aklapper(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

On Tue, 2014-09-16 at 13:32 -0700, Brion Vibber wrote: > Ok, I've killed the iOS version as well. There's a "Commons App" product in bugzilla.wikimedia.org with 213 tickets, 82 of them open. There is also an "Unofficial Apps" product in Bugzilla: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/describecomponents.cgi?product=Unofficial%20… What would you like to see happen in Bugzilla? Move tickets from 'Commons App' to a new component under 'Unofficial'? All lowest priority? Should Brion really be default assignee for all those 'Unofficial' tickets? andre -- Andre Klapper | Wikimedia Bugwrangler http://blogs.gnome.org/aklapper/ _______________________________________________ Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l

-- Dan Garry Associate Product Manager, Mobile Apps Wikimedia Foundation

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Dan Garry

3:07 a.m.

Thanks Andre! FWIW, I've also documented our app sunsetting process, for future reference: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Apps/Application_sunsetting Dan On 22 September 2014 17:52, Andre Klapper <aklapper(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

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On Mon, 2014-09-22 at 13:37 -0700, Dan Garry wrote:

I believe I have now WONTFIXed all open bugs filed against the Commons app.

You did! Thanks. :) And I've closed the product for new bug entry. Cheers, andre -- Andre Klapper | Wikimedia Bugwrangler http://blogs.gnome.org/aklapper/ _______________________________________________ Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l

-- Dan Garry Associate Product Manager, Mobile Apps Wikimedia Foundation

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Bernd Sitzmann

10:32 p.m.

A few more thing that should be done: * What about the iOS app? * Disable translations on translatewiki.net for the various Commons related message groups. [1] * A note in the README on github[2] about the state of the app * A cursory web search showed me a link to this blog post of the announcement of the app[3] quite prominently. I think it would be good to have a reply to it or at least another post on the same blog saying that we're sunsetting this app. * MediaWiki [4] probably should be also updated. I've replaced the link to Google Play with the releases site on [5]. Bernd [1] https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=69395 [2] https://github.com/wikimedia/android-commons [3] http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/04/29/announcing-the-official-commons-app-fo… [4] http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Apps/Commons [5] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Apps/Commons/Support#Where_can_I_d… On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 2:10 PM, Federico Leva (Nemo) <nemowiki(a)gmail.com> wrote:

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I support anything which reduces stress/workload/wasted effort for translatewiki.net translators. < https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/buglist.cgi?keywords=i18n&keywords_type=…

Nemo _______________________________________________ Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l

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Dan Garry

11:54 p.m.

I just created an account on translatewiki.net, but it appears I can't edit that page because I'm not a member of the group "Users". Dan On 16 September 2014 14:36, Federico Leva (Nemo) <nemowiki(a)gmail.com> wrote:

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Bernd Sitzmann, 16/09/2014 22:32:

* Disable translations on translatewiki.net <http://translatewiki.net/> for the various Commons related message groups. [1]

I already submitted https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/160831/1 Please expand/update https://translatewiki.net/wiki/Translating:WikimediaMobile (it always needs update :p every small edit helps). Nemo _______________________________________________ Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l

-- Dan Garry Associate Product Manager, Mobile Apps Wikimedia Foundation

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Dan Garry

16 Sep 16 Sep

11:37 p.m.

Bernd, Responses in-line. On 16 September 2014 13:32, Bernd Sitzmann <bsitzmann(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

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* Disable translations on translatewiki.net for the various Commons related message groups. [1]

Since you're our resident translatewiki.net guru, can you do that?

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* A note in the README on github[2] about the state of the app

Android: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/160830/ iOS: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/160833/ My understanding is that github mirrors the actual repository, so once we've got that merged it'll appear in Github too. Can someone check those and +2 them? I could +2 them myself, but... coding practices. :-)

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* A cursory web search showed me a link to this blog post of the announcement of the app[3] quite prominently. I think it would be good to have a reply to it or at least another post on the same blog saying that we're sunsetting this app.

A separate blog post probably isn't necessary, but I will leave a comment on that blog post announcing that we no longer support it.

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* MediaWiki [4] probably should be also updated. I've replaced the link to Google Play with the releases site on [5].

Indeed. I'll search for any relevant documentation and update it. Thanks Bernd! Dan -- Dan Garry Associate Product Manager, Mobile Apps Wikimedia Foundation

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