Thanks to C. Scott Ananian for a response which is more informative than
almost all the other communications I have received on the subject of
planning for the future of the editor and parser software. It will not
come amiss, I hope, if I pick up a few points for further discussion.
Firstly, my posting was not "bait" nor does it require the teams and
projects to be defended. It was intended as constructive criticism and as
such I would hope that the people concerned take it in that spirit.
However, I quite understand that no criticism, however well justified or
motivated, is ever entirely welcome.
Secondly, while Scott is a Senior Softwre Engieer in the Parsing team, I
take it that his comments are more a personal point of view than a formal
expression of intention on the part of the Foundation. If I'm wrong, and
he is speaking with full authority for the Foundation on some or all of the
points he makes, it would be helpful to have that noted explicitly.
Thirdly, let's look at the point "WMF has become scared of large scale
projects after the community rejection of Visual Editor,Media Viewer, and
Flow. It has interpreted the community's reaction to these projects as a
directive to "think smaller" and concentrate on simple reactions to user
bug reports." That may be the case, but if so it represents a major
category mistake. The community reaction was against having unwanted and
unworkable changes imposed on them by force majeure without previous
involvement and without consultation, and that is completely and
overwhelmingly obvious from their reaction. The size of the projects was
never the primary issue. If the WMF wanted to know, raher than guess, what
the community's view was, and why they reacted as they did, and if it was
genuiney unsure about those points, and especially if it saw itself as
being directed by the community, then it could and should have engaged with
the community to find out what it was that the community did and did not
want. This did not happen at the time, still does not happen in any way
that can support sensible planning, and very badly needs to happen. Of the
WMF staff view themselves as have been directed by the community to do or
not do anything over the last couple of years, then you and they need to
kow that this is very much the opposite of the view from the community.
Fourthly, there is the issue of wikitext. This is not the place to discuss
the technicalities. The point at issue is that the huge investment by the
community of contributors in extant wikitext, and the major effort and
disruption required to modernise, will have to be balanced against the
benefits of a new system, whatever that might be. This cannot work unless
there is full, clear and open engagement between WMF developers and the
wider community. Currently that simply is not happening. I have
explicitly asked where plans for the future of the editors and the parsr
unification project can be seen, and there has simply been no response. Do
those plans exist? If so, where are they, and why are they not being
shared wth the community. If not, why and how is any work proceeding, and
what process will be used to developt those plans, and in particular, hwow
will the community be involved? These are not questions of idle curiosity
for one particular user's satisfaction, they issues requiring clear and
public articuation as key components of any successful future staraegy to
avoid the disastrous mistakes of the past.
Fifthly I note that there have been repeated assurances over time that the
content of the databases will continue to be wikitext, and that wikitext
will be directly editable, at least for the foreseeable future. Those
assurances came from people who oight to know and who appeared to be
speaking on behalf of, and with the authority of the WMF. The comments
made by Scott do not entirely support those assurances.
Finally I repeat my thanks for what has been one of the more informative
and positive responses I have yet to see in this area. I note that the
message of much improved engagement between WMF staff and volunteer
community is one that it shared to some considerable extent, and I reagrd
that as a step in the right direction,
"Rogol"