On 7 September 2014 13:33, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Get real and look what Flow is and how it can be improved. Check out the use cases it works for and acknowledge the achievements. THEN and only THEN consider the features that are being tested and are still deficient. THEN and only THEN point out how we can move forward and make it work better. THEN and only THEN can you lament what we may lose what you liked in Talk pages.
What makes you think that I have not made all that already? I've been participating and giving feedback from the very day Flow was announced to en.wiki, I've filed bugs (the last one today, sending some screenshots to Erik and he said they're helping him to narrow down the problem with Echo), I've tested all the releases the day they appeared, I've built mock-ups, I've suggested and fought for improvements like the table of contents, I have acknowledged and welcomed the improvements to the usability that Flow will suppose for newcomers, which is a subject that I care deeply for.
But I've also analyzed the overall direction and found that its basic approach is limited in scope, treating talk pages as a mere conversation channel when it fulfills many other roles, and dismissing some fundamental goals of the talk space that are essential to the mission to build an encyclopedia, like their role in documenting how articles have been written and making editors accountable to the world; I've found ways at which the current design may hurt those goals, but so far has been impossible to get you to listen.
I *am* trying to point out how we can move forward and make it work better. I'm trying to reach you because I want Flow to succeed, by pointing out what I believe by heart to be its deepest flaws so that they can be corrected, and you think I'm attacking the project.
However, please consider our need. We are moving more and more towards mobile readers and editors and talk pages just do not cut it. We need something better for these use cases and, we need them urgently.
I have considered those needs, and I've never denied that those are important goals to fulfill, why would you think I thought otherwise, when I've never sated such thing? Gerard, do you hate me so much that you put in my mouth words that I haven't said and assume that I hold positions that are opposite to what I believe? :'-/
On the other hand, I have requested you to consider our needs, and you have dismissed them with prejudice. How do you think that treatment will make us editors feel, and how it will affect the attitude of the community towards the project?
Please assume good faith and try to listen to what people who care deeply about the project have to say. I believe that the end result of building an understanding, from the very different starting points that are held by the debaters, will benefit the project deeply and will allow for a much more robust tool that any other way to proceed.