Jan Kucera (Kozuch) wrote:
why is the Foundation so passive??? I have been since almost 5 years with various Wikimedia projects and I can really see NO PROGRESS from the side of the Foundation but more employees, 2 new blogs, new Vector skin and maybe MediaWiki performance tweaks. My participation declined radically, because I can not feel any real support from the foundation. It is not 2006 anymore. Look at what other websites have done in 5 years and you realize they have undergone major redesigns. And as someone wrote here lately Wikipedia still seems so 2005. This is OK for an encyclopedia, but unfortunately the way volunteers work is stuck in 2005 too...
It's a volunteer community: you can improve the sites at will. I agree that a lot of the software development in the past year or two has been rather boring. MediaWiki 1.17 was largely a lot of "fixes under the hood" and it took way too long to go live. On the Wikimedia side of things, it's been roughly the same: new datacenter, better ops support, etc. This isn't exciting work, but it does hopefully make it more likely that, going forward, other people can spend their time focusing on software feature development and code review rather than constantly battling to keep the site up. Or something like that.
A lot of the projects that Wikimedia is investing in today are small and focused on particular needs of the Wikimedia Foundation, not the Wikimedia community. One example might be an article feedback tool that's largely focused on ensuring that Wikimedia fulfills its Public Policy grant requirements rather than actually being a useful tool for rating and evaluating articles. (Imagine if you could find the most fascinating articles, similar to ted.com's system; now look at what Wikimedia has implemented.) Another example might be an UploadWizard that is focused on ensuring that Wikimedia fulfills its Multimedia grant requirements rather than actually being fully developed and ready for use by Wikimedia Commons.
These examples are off the top of my head, but anyone paying attention can see the trend fairly clearly, I think. The return of Brion as Lead Software Architect may change some of this, but only time will tell.
Sophisticated decision mechanism simply does not exist on a community level, and those on Foundation level are of little importance. Is it really that hard to launch an ideas bank (at ideas.wikimedia.org for example) to boil down what the community really needs instead of letting volunteers have endless discussions in wiki-style? Will someone finally realize that wiki is not the holy-grail of "collaboration" and maybe other tools are needed too?
There were some ideas thrown around about this at some point, though I don't remember by whom or where. Other large organizations use systems like this (e.g., Starbucks and KDE or Debian, as I recall). They generally implement software such as Pligg and the like. It's certainly possible to install similar software on Wikimedia's servers, but there are large challenges to overcome such as language barriers and concerns about a pure voting system that discards rational argument and debate.
If you want something like this, work toward making it happen. Write a proposal at Meta, investigate options for implementations, file bugs in Bugzilla, talk to Wikimedia Foundation staff, etc. Rambling e-mails to foundation-l, while sometimes stress-relieving, don't tend to actually accomplish much. A little more free advice: if you can convince the Wikimedia Foundation that your idea/project/proposal is related to "usability," "fundraising," the "gender gap," or "engaging new users," you're much more likely to get attention for it.
MZMcBride
On 5 April 2011 03:02, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
A lot of the projects that Wikimedia is investing in today are small and focused on particular needs of the Wikimedia Foundation, not the Wikimedia community. One example might be an article feedback tool that's largely focused on ensuring that Wikimedia fulfills its Public Policy grant requirements rather than actually being a useful tool for rating and evaluating articles. (Imagine if you could find the most fascinating articles, similar to ted.com's system; now look at what Wikimedia has implemented.)
*cough* From 2005:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:David_Gerard/1.0
Magnus put together a quick version, but Brion didn't like the code and it never happened. However, mine is just one such proposal. Article rating has been a wanted feature for *years*.
What I'd like to see is article rating being more widespread. But having a grant push it through is *just fine*, because it gets it done at all.
- d.
2011/4/5 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com
On 5 April 2011 03:02, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
A lot of the projects that Wikimedia is investing in today are small and focused on particular needs of the Wikimedia Foundation, not the Wikimedia community. One example might be an article feedback tool that's largely focused on ensuring that Wikimedia fulfills its Public Policy grant requirements rather than actually being a useful tool for rating and evaluating articles. (Imagine if you could find the most fascinating articles, similar to ted.com's system; now look at what Wikimedia has implemented.)
*cough* From 2005:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:David_Gerard/1.0
Magnus put together a quick version, but Brion didn't like the code and it never happened. However, mine is just one such proposal. Article rating has been a wanted feature for *years*.
... And in the Hungarian Wikipedia it was even implemented quite a long time ago. If i recall correctly, at some point i saw it in the Polish, too.
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com "We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace." - T. Moore
On 5 April 2011 09:48, Amir E. Aharoni amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il wrote:
2011/4/5 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com
Article rating has been a wanted feature for *years*.
... And in the Hungarian Wikipedia it was even implemented quite a long time ago. If i recall correctly, at some point i saw it in the Polish, too.
I didn't know that at all :-) Having it as a proper supported extension pulled into core-ish code would definitely be an advance.
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
On 5 April 2011 09:48, Amir E. Aharoni amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il wrote:
2011/4/5 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com
Article rating has been a wanted feature for *years*.
... And in the Hungarian Wikipedia it was even implemented quite a long time ago. If i recall correctly, at some point i saw it in the Polish, too.
I didn't know that at all :-) Having it as a proper supported extension pulled into core-ish code would definitely be an advance.
Aye, the English Wiktionary has had a rating feature in the sidebar for ages as well. (The English Wiktionary's implementation might be the oldest working system.) I wrote some comments about the grant-based ArticleFeedback tool here and there are some interesting, thoughtful replies: http://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?oldid=395730#Assorted_comments
I think a neat rating tool would be an awesome addition to MediaWiki. I don't think it's top priority, though. I also don't think the current implementation is anywhere near what users would actually want to see. The English Wikipedia has a lot of "quirky" articles, for example. It'd be awesome if you could get a list of those easily (or randomly flip through the most quirky). Or the most "fascinating," the articles with the "best layouts," (following the addition of a "share this article" feature) the "most e-mailed," (following the addition of proper view metrics) the "most viewed," etc.
MZMcBride
On 5 April 2011 09:40, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
*cough* From 2005:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:David_Gerard/1.0
Magnus put together a quick version, but Brion didn't like the code and it never happened. However, mine is just one such proposal. Article rating has been a wanted feature for *years*.
What I'd like to see is article rating being more widespread. But having a grant push it through is *just fine*, because it gets it done at all.
except the current implementation is horrible in in the classic skin since it shoves a huge great ratings box at the top of the article.
On 5 April 2011 22:20, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 5 April 2011 09:40, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Article rating has been a wanted feature for *years*. What I'd like to see is article rating being more widespread. But having a grant push it through is *just fine*, because it gets it done at all.
except the current implementation is horrible in in the classic skin since it shoves a huge great ratings box at the top of the article.
Classic is largely unmaintained, since no-one seems to want to bother to maintain it. How's your coding?
- d.
On 4/5/2011 2:37 PM, David Gerard wrote:
Classic is largely unmaintained, since no-one seems to want to bother to maintain it.
To coin a phrase, Monobook is the new Classic. Maybe we should rename Classic to Legacy? That might communicate the implications a bit better to anyone considering it.
--Michael Snow
On 5 April 2011 03:02, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
Another example might be an UploadWizard that is focused on ensuring that Wikimedia fulfills its Multimedia grant requirements rather than actually being fully developed and ready for use by Wikimedia Commons. These examples are off the top of my head, but anyone paying attention can see the trend fairly clearly, I think.
What I see is grants supplying money to get initiatives that have been long-wanted happening. The near-impossibility of getting even quite simple things through a bureaucratic kudzu-choked community process has been noted on this list *many* times.
This is far from ideal, as you note. But in practical terms, I submit it's better than this stuff never happening at all, which is what would occur without it.
If I've correctly ascertained your essential point: you appear broadly to think the WMF is becoming a self-sustaining creature *at the expense* of the community; and you think it's getting bloated and complacent. I think both of these are quite incorrect.
The return of Brion as Lead Software Architect may change some of this, but only time will tell.
You phrase that as if that's a change in politics (I don't know if that's what you intended, it's just how it comes across to me), but I think it's more a factor of having *another senior developer*.
We really do underspend horribly in the tech area, compared to what we need. That $14-16m from the fundraiser could be gobbled up in a moment. In my day job, I work for a tiny, tiny publisher with an approximately negligible web presence; two sysadmins, several developers, about the same number of support staff; our department's budget is bigger than WMF's entire budget. This mainstream website, this *social institution*, still runs on cheese and string and crossed fingers. Brilliant devs get paid at charity scale, not at what they could get at Facebook or Google (which is fine, 'cos everyone needs career progression, and a couple of years' WMF is resume gold).
(And I am not saying that I think we should sink the entire budget into tech and neglect everything else, not at all - all the program and liaison and fuzzy human stuff WMF does is necessary to deal with the fact that we are in fact a social institution and have become part of the fabric of society that people just assume is always there, and only we seem to realise just how tiny and fragile WMF actually is.)
So, yeah. Good times ahead! Hopefully.
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
On 5 April 2011 03:02, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
Another example might be an UploadWizard that is focused on ensuring that Wikimedia fulfills its Multimedia grant requirements rather than actually being fully developed and ready for use by Wikimedia Commons. These examples are off the top of my head, but anyone paying attention can see the trend fairly clearly, I think.
What I see is grants supplying money to get initiatives that have been long-wanted happening. The near-impossibility of getting even quite simple things through a bureaucratic kudzu-choked community process has been noted on this list *many* times.
This is far from ideal, as you note. But in practical terms, I submit it's better than this stuff never happening at all, which is what would occur without it.
It goes back to nothing in life being free, I think. The money for (most of) these grants has been restricted. These projects are generally worthwhile, but with grant money, they immediately become top priority due to grant deadlines and the specifications for these products must be tailored to the demands of the grant. That isn't to say that the code can't be expandable/extensible/etc., but the primary goal of these tools is to fulfill the needs of the grant, not to fulfill the needs of the community.
If I've correctly ascertained your essential point: you appear broadly to think the WMF is becoming a self-sustaining creature *at the expense* of the community; and you think it's getting bloated and complacent. I think both of these are quite incorrect.
Something thereabouts. It's easy enough to find people who agree with this view, though it's easy enough to find people who agree with any view on the Internet....
MZMcBride
On Tue, Apr 5, 2011 at 8:22 AM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
David Gerard wrote:
On 5 April 2011 03:02, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
Another example might be an UploadWizard that is focused on ensuring that Wikimedia fulfills its Multimedia grant requirements rather than actually being fully developed and ready for use by Wikimedia Commons. These examples are off the top of my head, but anyone paying attention can see the trend fairly clearly, I think.
What I see is grants supplying money to get initiatives that have been long-wanted happening. The near-impossibility of getting even quite simple things through a bureaucratic kudzu-choked community process has been noted on this list *many* times.
This is far from ideal, as you note. But in practical terms, I submit it's better than this stuff never happening at all, which is what would occur without it.
It goes back to nothing in life being free, I think. The money for (most of) these grants has been restricted. These projects are generally worthwhile, but with grant money, they immediately become top priority due to grant deadlines and the specifications for these products must be tailored to the demands of the grant. That isn't to say that the code can't be expandable/extensible/etc., but the primary goal of these tools is to fulfill the needs of the grant, not to fulfill the needs of the community.
As with any volunteer project, the efforts volunteered by grant-writers are not optimal for the long-term evolution of the encyclopedia (not that I think we know / agree on what that path necessarily is, but for the sake of argument...).
All types of volunteer project are a brownian random walk in the generally agreed upon direction. I think it's fair to say that the Foundation should reject grants that don't push in the generally agreed upon direction. But I don't think they should reject generally agreed upon direction grants that the donor puts a scope limit on, because they don't completely fulfil the community desires in particular areas.
Donors have finite resources and are balancing wider concerns, too. We can always come back and add additional features or function where a grant didn't give us everything we want.
Lacking a large endowment, we have to take what we can get.
If I've correctly ascertained your essential point: you appear broadly to think the WMF is becoming a self-sustaining creature *at the expense* of the community; and you think it's getting bloated and complacent. I think both of these are quite incorrect.
Something thereabouts. It's easy enough to find people who agree with this view, though it's easy enough to find people who agree with any view on the Internet....
There is a curve in the evolution of volunteer groups into charities; it happens because differently sized organizations have different organizational requirements and structures and imperatives. It's not a straight line; some organizations at a given size are more responsive and closer to their original constituents than others.
Some of those goals include the "We have a long term goal, and therefore the organization must survive long-term," which then drives one towards more PR and organized giving and donor development etc. Those things are not in any way directly relevant to the Encyclopedia (and other projects). But having a Foundation is key to the Encyclopedia (and other projects) long term successes; we long passed the point that volunteer labor would keep the lights on, servers up and sufficient for the load, and software development running at acceptable pace. The tradeoff, that a fair amount of what the Foundation does is then necessary because it's a Foundation, was explicit in its founding.
It frustrates people a lot at times, but we need to acknowledge that tradeoff, that we made it, that we needed to make it, and move on.
Whether the Foundation's board, execs, and staff are as focused on supporting the community that work on the projects as is ideal is unquestionably no. That's part of a dynamic trade between the concerns of the ongoing organization and the concerns of its final end product (the projects). We'll never on the community side be entirely happy with that.
What we can ask is whether the board, execs, and staff support the goal and work diligently on it. And as a rule, I have been satisfied with the answers on that one. They generally get it right; when they get it wrong, they talk about it and are open to input. When it's not clear what right and wrong are they let people know there's an unanswered question.
2011/4/5 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
What I see is grants supplying money to get initiatives that have been long-wanted happening. The near-impossibility of getting even quite simple things through a bureaucratic kudzu-choked community process has been noted on this list *many* times.
To clarify, the Article Feedback Tool isn't funded by grant money. Measuring Public Policy Initiative article improvement was one of the timeline constraints for the project, but it had been in our list of wants and needs before that, it is being funded out of the core budget, and it's being tested on non-PPI articles. We'll wrap up this iteration of the tooling soon, and after that, will likely post an RfP for next-generation work so the core team can focus on rich-text-editing and new user interventions.
Guillaume is working on some draft specs for next-generation work here: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Article_feedback/Extended_review if you want to jump in with thoughts, but note that it's still being iterated quite heavily.
It's very easy to expand these kinds of tools into all different directions -- ratings/comments/tagging/sharing etc. -- and we're focusing on quality measurement as the main objective, but you'll see in the extended proposal that we're thinking about ways that readers can add extended feedback, going into a review database from where it could be promoted to the talk page if it's considered especially useful.
In the current iteration we're also testing whether ratings can be a form of user engagement, by running a few post-rating invitations (create an account / edit the article / take a survey) -- if those invitations work, the tool could also play a significant role in our new user work.
On 04/05/2011 10:59 AM, David Gerard wrote:
We really do underspend horribly in the tech area, compared to what we need. That $14-16m from the fundraiser could be gobbled up in a moment. In my day job, I work for a tiny, tiny publisher with an approximately negligible web presence; two sysadmins, several developers, about the same number of support staff; our department's budget is bigger than WMF's entire budget. This mainstream website, this *social institution*, still runs on cheese and string and crossed fingers. Brilliant devs get paid at charity scale, not at what they could get at Facebook or Google (which is fine, 'cos everyone needs career progression, and a couple of years' WMF is resume gold).
Money is not an issue. Put the finger anywhere in Eastern Europe and you can take [already employed] best programmers for 20-50k EUR who would be loyal to WMF up to their retirement (if they don't need to go to SF). Put the finger anywhere in India (which has four or more times more inhabitants than Eastern Europe) and you can get similar ones for 5-10k.
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org