Informative discussion. Thank you all. I knew the history here, but seeing
it come alive from these various perspectives further clarified that
history for me.
Thank you.
/a
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 9:00 AM, Anthony Cole <ahcoleecu(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Magnus, regarding, "...at some point, you have to
leave the test
environment, and test your product against reality."
Of course. But VE was far, far too bad for real time when it was released.
Really. It was driving newbies away. The sensible embracers-of-change threw
it out, in the end. The squealing Ludites don't have the numbers for that.
When the sensible majority starts squealing, the developers really need to
pay attention.
I didn't follow it carefully but it seemed to me the release of the Image
Viewer was much better timed and handled. Ludites squealed but genuine
concerns were addressed promptly and respectfully.
Anthony Cole
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 11:58 PM, Magnus Manske <
magnusmanske(a)googlemail.com
wrote:
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 3:40 PM Anthony Cole
<ahcoleecu(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
> Magnus, in the interview you said "From the Media Viewer, the Visual
> Editor, to Wikidata transclusion, all have been resisted by vocal
groups
of
editors, not because they are a problem, but
because they represent
change.
For these editors, the site has worked fine for
years; why change
anything?"
Well, yes. No one here, I'm sure, will argue there aren't such groups.
But the problem with the blog post is you only mention them.
Because they are the problem, and they (by being vocal) often get more
attention than a more silent, sensible majority. But by getting
attention,
they shape the general consensus, in a negative
way.
You don't take
into account the very much larger crowd, including myself, who were
hanging
out for the visual editor and were contemptuously
flicked off by the
developers when we brought up fatal flaws, as just some more
superconservative no-vision Ludites - haters of change.
I am not going to get into a who-said-what-to-whom-in-what-tone
discussion
here. I wouldn't be surprised if some
developers didn't bother to
differentiate between sensible feedback and nay-sayers. As I have said in
this mail thread, I hope the Foundation has learned how to deal with
feedback more sensibly.
>
> The first version of VE was so bad it was harming our mission. It was
far
> worse than "didn't do everything
100% right." It would have been
bounced
back from
the community to the developers even if that first group of
bitter, change-hating autistic ranters hadn't said a word.
Consider this perspective: I doubt the developers would have pushed out
that first version if it had massively failed their own tests. But at
some
point, you have to leave the test environment,
and test your product
against reality. Remember, WMF is not Microsoft, with an army of
thousands
of paid beta-testers.
So then it turns out there are more (and more really bad) bugs than
anticipated. Then you go and fix those bugs. Which is what they did. But
turning a major endeavour on and off repeatedly is just a bad thing to
do.
> AFICT the window where wrong edits were made by VE was not /that/ large.
> Apparently, the decision was made to "power through it", rather than flip
> the switch repeatedly. That may or may not have been the right strategy.
>
>
> >
> > I notice VE isn't even an option when I log out and edit en.Wikipedia,
> yet
> > above others are saying it is much improved and ready for release. What
> are
> > we waiting for?
> >
>
> This is the thing. The atmosphere has been poisoned against VE, which now
> makes it much harder to get a good product deployed.
>
> But I agree with the sentiment. What ARE we waiting for?
>
> Cheers,
> Magnus
>
>
> >
> >
> >
> > Anthony Cole
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 10:56 PM, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
> >
> > > On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 9:39 AM, Anthony Cole <ahcoleecu(a)gmail.com>
>
wrote:
> > >
> > > > Magnus, you've missed the point of the visual editor revolt. A
couple
> of
> > > people here have tried to explain that to you, politely. And you're
> > > persisting with your idée fixe.
> > >
> >
> > To be fair, Magnus was addressing more than just the initial
complaints
> > from 2013. He said, “condemning an
entire product forever because the
> first
> > version didn’t do everything 100% right is just plain stupid.”
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