On 13.08.2014 05:57, Pine W wrote:
Two points I have heard off list are that 1. While it may be that disabling MV by default for logged-in users can be done, disabling it for those not logged-in is effectively another major UI change which a study shows likely will make some of them leave and not return; 2. German Wikimedians are going inactive in protest.
Can someone confirm that both of those points are true?
Point 2 is essentially impossible to confirm. People are coming, leaving and sometimes coming back (when I left the Russian Wikipedia in 2011, most of my opponents just said they are sure I was playing games and would be back soon). You never know why they leave, and even if they have left a clear message you never know how serious it is. It is quite unlikely that on a short term a significant share of active users will leave or has left - the German Wikipedia is not the Acehnese Wikipedia, and even if a dozen of users would leave at the same time, it can not be detected by the editing statistics. The long-time consequences and trends can of course be detected but then you would need to reach the active users who really have left and asked them why they left - it is unlikely anybody would successfully perform such study.
Cheers Yaroslav