(Volunteer with no Wikidata association apart from a couple of edits.)
Risker, while I see your point, and I agree that the deployment cycle is maybe just a little too rapid (give the editors some time to update their help pages ;) ), then your last mail is both unfair and untrue.
Most of all, there is nothing forcing you to use the new syntax elements. If you don't want them, revert edits which add them, and explain this to editors that make them. This isn't a technical issue.
On Mon, 08 Apr 2013 19:59:07 +0200, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
It's disturbing that even at the same time as the engineering and operations departments are working so hard to professionalize their work, to bring themselves up to industry standards, to properly staff themselves with people who understand not just the technical side, but also the content side - that there remains this cowboy attitude toward applying poorly developed software onto huge sites knowing full well that the software create significant community disruption. This isn't a little backwater website anymore, and it should never be the subject of a major test without the active engagement of those who are going to be the test subjects.
In my experience the Wikidata team has been extremely professional and amazingly productive, both in the quality and quantity of their creations. I was honestly surprised that it's possible to get something Wikimedia-related done that quickly. Lydia and everyone - great job :)
I see no cowboy attitude here. As pointed out, this was already tested on multiple wikis, some only a little smaller than enwiki. While the software is not entirely complete yet, this seems mostly by design (phase III, anyone?). It certainly works, and it's certainly good enough for wider deployment. There are some important bugs to iron out (https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=44874 comes to mind), but they're not really blockers, and I think (and hope!) they're being worked on.
Wiki design 101 is that nobody gets sent to another page/website/etc to edit content on the Wikipedia. (Even clicking on an image that is held on Commons takes people to a Wikipedia page for the image, and then gives them the choice to go to Commons.)
But you do need to go to Commons to, say, upload a different version of it. Wiki editing 101 for you.
And I think this was being worked on for language links, anyway. Lydia, is there a bug for that? ;)