as usual, I get surprised every time there are major changes on the MediaWiki software that are deployed without providing advance warning to the community.

Every time it's the same story: something stops working on the project. A gadget, a toolbar or some personalised JS.

This time it was T288141 (see https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T288141), that was deployed in all the Wikisources (then rolled back because WikiMedia computer scientists are the best) completely disrupting redesigning the image side of the Page namespace. This affected the toolbars (see https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T296033) and several gadgets around all the Wikisources.

I am not saying that MediaWiki software shouldn't be improved: it's normal that we're trying to get all we can from this outdated software. I am just asking that major changes that affect all the Wikisources should be announced in every single Village Pump waaay before deploying them on the projects.

Is it possible, as a Usergroup, to do a little pressure to be considered as a community and not as guinea pigs on which to deploy new, partially-tested features?

Alex