I have a few questions about the deployment of Vector in Wikipedias in other languages.
1. When does the Foundation plan to perform the switch?
2. At least two major features which were not included in the Beta, were enabled in the English Wikipedia: the new search box with "Go" and "Search" buttons and the collapsible sidebar which hides interlanguage links by default. A significant number of users in en.wikipedia expressed their dissatisfaction with them and with the fact that they were introduced by surprise. They are still not a part of the Beta in other languages. Will they be enabled in other languages when they are switched to Vector?
3. Did anyone consider appointing "Vector migration czars" in Wikipedias in other languages? Because despite what some people might think, quite a lot of speakers of other languages don't bother looking at en.wikipedia and WMF blogs and mailing lists. I wrote a little about the good (IMHO) and the bad (IMHO) features about Vector in the Village Pumps of Wikipedias in languages that i know - Hebrew, Russian and Catalan. I can report that there are a couple of JavaScript gurus in he.wikipedia who have a positive attitude towards Vector and who gradually adapt the gadgets to it, and there are a few other JS gurus who hate Vector and who don't want to bother about it and recommend everyone to stay with Monobook. (Although my attitude may seem negative, i actually belong to the first camp.) The situation is similar in the Russian Wikipedia.
4. Finally, does the Foundation plan to gather any other feedback from other language Wikipedias except the "Beta retention rate"?
Thanks in advance.
Amir E. Aharoni wrote:
I have a few questions about the deployment of Vector in Wikipedias in other languages.
Hi, Amir.
Thank you for your help in contributing testing the beta, providing RTL feedback and your active feedback on the recent deployment of the user interface change to Commons and English Wikipedia.
- When does the Foundation plan to perform the switch?
I'll be coordinating the deployment schedule for the rest of the languages and other Wikmedia projects in coming weeks by monitoring the problems reported from Commons and English Wikipedia users, and coordinating the schedule with the language community and the chapter members. We do not have a specific date yet, but we hope to be able to start migrating the rest of the languages and other projects within next four weeks.
- At least two major features which were not included in the Beta,
were enabled in the English Wikipedia: the new search box with "Go" and "Search" buttons and the collapsible sidebar which hides interlanguage links by default. A significant number of users in en.wikipedia expressed their dissatisfaction with them and with the fact that they were introduced by surprise. They are still not a part of the Beta in other languages. Will they be enabled in other languages when they are switched to Vector?
Yes, these new features will be enabled as a part of beta. As you reported the problems with the new search, we are adjusting the search box interaction by expanding the search suggestion field and make special search explicit. We hope to roll out the change later this week, if not we revert back to the previous search behavior. This change will be reflected across the beta for other languages.
- Did anyone consider appointing "Vector migration czars" in
Wikipedias in other languages? Because despite what some people might think, quite a lot of speakers of other languages don't bother looking at en.wikipedia and WMF blogs and mailing lists. I wrote a little about the good (IMHO) and the bad (IMHO) features about Vector in the Village Pumps of Wikipedias in languages that i know - Hebrew, Russian and Catalan. I can report that there are a couple of JavaScript gurus in he.wikipedia who have a positive attitude towards Vector and who gradually adapt the gadgets to it, and there are a few other JS gurus who hate Vector and who don't want to bother about it and recommend everyone to stay with Monobook. (Although my attitude may seem negative, i actually belong to the first camp.) The situation is similar in the Russian Wikipedia.
As the community in various languages and the translation community have been the major force in supporting rolling out major changes to the sites, I will be reaching out to the translation community for translating the announcements, FAQ, and the feedback page to set-up the structure. Appointing ambassadors (rather than czars :-)) would be a great idea, and and it will be crucial for language communities who don't have strong presence or the communications channels to meta or to the various discussions which are taking place in English.
- Finally, does the Foundation plan to gather any other feedback from
other language Wikipedias except the "Beta retention rate"?
We make decisions and adjustment on new features not only based on the beta retention rate[1], but also the feedback submitted from various language and project communities[2], and we set-up discussion board in Village Pump, Admin' noticeboard, and project specific feedback page prior to the switch and for the post-switch support[3].
[1] http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Beta_Feedback_Survey [2] http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Beta_Feedback_Survey/User_Comments [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:User_experience_feedback
Thanks again for your active involvement and contribution in advocating the support for non-English communities and users, especially for bringing attentions to right-to-left languages.
- Naoko
User Experience Programs, WMF
Hello Naoko
Thank you for the explanations, by the way I find it interesting to read the feedback, the users' comments.
Sometimes it is difficult for me to follow things because Vector has changed or is displayed in various projects differently.
Kind regards Ziko
Ziko van Dijk wrote:
Hello Naoko
Thank you for the explanations, by the way I find it interesting to read the feedback, the users' comments.
Sometimes it is difficult for me to follow things because Vector has changed or is displayed in various projects differently.
Kind regards Ziko
Hi, Ziko.
I agree that it is sometimes not easy to correlate the state of the beta and the feedback as the beta evolved and it was enhanced based on the feedback. One thing I can recommend is to sort the feedback by date, and read from the most recent feedback. Some of the old feedback may not be relevant any more as we provided the solution around it. For example, collapsible tabs were developed for languages with long words such as German and Greek which expands the width and overlaps the tabs.
In principle all features are enabled universally across all project under the beta. We are experiencing a short window of the deviation with the deployment on English Wikipedia which had a new search and collapsible left navigation side bar. But these features will be part of the beta by next week.
Cheers,
- Naoko
Speaking of which, I'd like to use this opportunity to re-express my EXTREME dissatisfaction with the hidden-by-default interwiki links. This almost defeats the entire purpose of interwikis - that is, to let people know that the article exists in their language as well. If my native language is Afrikaans, for example, it's not reasonable for me to "assume" that every article I view in en.wp is also available in that language, so it will always be a pleasant surprise to see a link there. However, if it's not shown by default, I'll probably just miss it every time. This new "feature" is potentially extremely harmful to many non-English Wikipedias.
Mark
On Wed, May 19, 2010 at 9:45 AM, Amir E. Aharoni amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il wrote:
I have a few questions about the deployment of Vector in Wikipedias in other languages.
When does the Foundation plan to perform the switch?
At least two major features which were not included in the Beta,
were enabled in the English Wikipedia: the new search box with "Go" and "Search" buttons and the collapsible sidebar which hides interlanguage links by default. A significant number of users in en.wikipedia expressed their dissatisfaction with them and with the fact that they were introduced by surprise. They are still not a part of the Beta in other languages. Will they be enabled in other languages when they are switched to Vector?
- Did anyone consider appointing "Vector migration czars" in
Wikipedias in other languages? Because despite what some people might think, quite a lot of speakers of other languages don't bother looking at en.wikipedia and WMF blogs and mailing lists. I wrote a little about the good (IMHO) and the bad (IMHO) features about Vector in the Village Pumps of Wikipedias in languages that i know - Hebrew, Russian and Catalan. I can report that there are a couple of JavaScript gurus in he.wikipedia who have a positive attitude towards Vector and who gradually adapt the gadgets to it, and there are a few other JS gurus who hate Vector and who don't want to bother about it and recommend everyone to stay with Monobook. (Although my attitude may seem negative, i actually belong to the first camp.) The situation is similar in the Russian Wikipedia.
- Finally, does the Foundation plan to gather any other feedback from
other language Wikipedias except the "Beta retention rate"?
Thanks in advance.
-- אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי Amir Elisha Aharoni
"We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace." - T. Moore
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On Fri, May 21, 2010 at 01:23, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
Speaking of which, I'd like to use this opportunity to re-express my EXTREME dissatisfaction with the hidden-by-default interwiki links.
Reported at Bugzilla: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=23497 .
-- אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי Amir Elisha Aharoni
"We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace." - T. Moore
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org