Roan Kattouw wrote:
2010/9/3 MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com:
In large part, the problems and solutions are obvious (you pointed out most of them, and this is hardly the first time this has come up). The issue is that those in power (those who sign the paychecks and employment contracts) are deliberately choosing to ignore these problems and their solutions.
This isn't an "assumption of bad faith" and I won't hear anything of the sort. It's the reality. The problems are obvious; the solutions are obvious. What isn't obvious is why certain people in executive positions have chosen to ignore the problems.
Your allegations that these problems are deliberately being ignored is a serious one, and you may take my word for it (although I'm fairly sure that you won't) that these people definitely care. I think you're wrong in assuming that all these solutions are totally obvious to everyone: serious thought needs to be given to this, and these people have more issues on their mind that just this single one. You are right that there doesn't seem to have been any concrete action or clear statements from people in key positions (say Erik, or, better, Danese) and I very much want that to change. I just disagree with the assertion that they don't care.
I'm not sure if you intended it as such, but this reads as an appeal to emotion. It's not a matter of feelings or a matter of whether someone is committed to Wikimedia's mission or anything of that sort. That is, it isn't about whether people "care" in the sense in which you're using it. It's a matter of whether those in control are making it a priority. And from where I'm sitting, it seems fairly clear that general code review and deployment isn't being made a priority. At least where I work, if my boss says to do something, it gets done.
And, more to the point, how many managers (or other employees) need to be hired before "serious thought" can be devoted to these issues? They seem fairly fundamental to me for an organization that runs websites.
It would take a matter of minutes to shutdown the private IRC channels and private mailing lists.
You're assuming this is one of the obvious solutions, which I contend above.
It seems fairly obvious to me. Aryeh's points about #wikimedia-dev seem fairly spot-on. Do you disagree? If so, why?
It would take one order from one of the members of the executive team for substantive code review and deployment to take place.
Oh really? So I guess we have dozens of people capable of and available for reviewing and deploying code? We don't. As you have said yourself and Aryeh has pointed out, review and deployment has been a problem for a long time, and if one order could have solved it that would've happened long ago.
Yes, really. When it's fundraising-related or Usability-related, there seems to be no issue with code deployment. The server admin log bears me out on this.[1] So yes, I will contend that there would be man-power for review and deployment of the rest of the codebase if it were made a priority.
MZMcBride