Hey wikitech-l,
I finally got around to reading the August engineering report, which, as ever, is a very useful read. However, one item did stick out to me:
[Visual editor] Ian Baker http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Raindrift investigated and started to work on a chat system to be integrated to the concurrent editing interface, for collaboration and live help.
On the one hand, this seems like a potentially useful feature. On the other, it sounds like a very controversial feature that will present new opportunities for spam, not to mention working out a way that help can be provided uniformly across the board.
I'd really like to read more about this project and I'm sure others would too, but my searches thus far have been in vain. Where should I be looking?
Thanks, Harry (User:Jarry1250)
Harry Burt wrote:
Hey wikitech-l,
I finally got around to reading the August engineering report, which, as ever, is a very useful read. However, one item did stick out to me:
[Visual editor] Ian Baker http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Raindrift investigated and started to work on a chat system to be integrated to the concurrent editing interface, for collaboration and live help.
On the one hand, this seems like a potentially useful feature. On the other, it sounds like a very controversial feature that will present new opportunities for spam, not to mention working out a way that help can be provided uniformly across the board.
I'd really like to read more about this project and I'm sure others would too, but my searches thus far have been in vain. Where should I be looking?
Thanks, Harry (User:Jarry1250)
Indeed. I wasn't aware anyone was tasked to do such thing. I understand it may look cool, but I consider that to be a *bad* idea (I have already argued against it when it 2-3 times already). Who decided it is something to be implemented? Where's the result of that investigation?
On 04/09/11 16:06, Platonides wrote:
Indeed. I wasn't aware anyone was tasked to do such thing. I understand it may look cool, but I consider that to be a*bad* idea (I have already argued against it when it 2-3 times already). Who decided it is something to be implemented? Where's the result of that investigation?
Sounds like a tiny chat window much like EtherPad has. It might help communication when we will have the multiplayer game^H^H^H^Hinterface.
On 4 September 2011 13:44, Harry Burt jarry1250@gmail.com wrote:
[Visual editor] Ian Baker http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Raindrift investigated and started to work on a chat system to be integrated to the concurrent editing interface, for collaboration and live help.
There's a concurrent editing interface? Where is it (intended to be) used? It would never work for Wikipedia. The lack of a clear revision history and identifiable authors would be a big problem. It would also interfere with collaboration between people that aren't online at the same time (imagine three people are active on an article, two of which are online at the same time and so use the concurrent interface, how does the third person get involved?).
Concurrent editing is something being researched to a small degree. The issues you raise are well known, and there are others as well, but there may still be ways forward. This is not something that WMF is devoting lots of resources to, just experimenting with a bit - especially in light of how popular Etherpad has become among WMF employees.
- Trevor
On Sun, Sep 4, 2011 at 7:55 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.comwrote:
On 4 September 2011 13:44, Harry Burt jarry1250@gmail.com wrote:
[Visual editor] Ian Baker http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Raindrift investigated and started to work on a chat system to be integrated to the concurrent editing interface, for collaboration and live help.
There's a concurrent editing interface? Where is it (intended to be) used? It would never work for Wikipedia. The lack of a clear revision history and identifiable authors would be a big problem. It would also interfere with collaboration between people that aren't online at the same time (imagine three people are active on an article, two of which are online at the same time and so use the concurrent interface, how does the third person get involved?).
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Hi there,
I'm working on a live help system. I'll send more information as development progresses, but I simply wanted to let you know that this is in progress.
Thanks.
On Sun, Sep 4, 2011 at 5:44 AM, Harry Burt jarry1250@gmail.com wrote:
Hey wikitech-l,
I finally got around to reading the August engineering report, which, as ever, is a very useful read. However, one item did stick out to me:
[Visual editor] Ian Baker http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Raindrift investigated and started to work on a chat system to be integrated to the concurrent editing interface, for collaboration and live help.
On the one hand, this seems like a potentially useful feature. On the other, it sounds like a very controversial feature that will present new opportunities for spam, not to mention working out a way that help can be provided uniformly across the board.
I'd really like to read more about this project and I'm sure others would too, but my searches thus far have been in vain. Where should I be looking?
Thanks, Harry (User:Jarry1250) _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
On 05/09/11 02:17, Mono mium wrote:
Hi there,
I'm working on a live help system. I'll send more information as development progresses, but I simply wanted to let you know that this is in progress.
Make sure to send the code early on. You will attract some developers, get tips, and useful feedbacks :)
Will do.
On Mon, Sep 5, 2011 at 10:22 AM, Ashar Voultoiz hashar+wmf@free.fr wrote:
On 05/09/11 02:17, Mono mium wrote:
Hi there,
I'm working on a live help system. I'll send more information as
development
progresses, but I simply wanted to let you know that this is in progress.
Make sure to send the code early on. You will attract some developers, get tips, and useful feedbacks :)
-- Ashar Voultoiz
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
On the one hand, this seems like a potentially useful feature. On the other, it sounds like a very controversial feature that will present new opportunities for spam, not to mention working out a way that help can be provided uniformly across the board.
I'd really like to read more about this project and I'm sure others would too, but my searches thus far have been in vain. Where should I be looking?
Hey, Harry. Sorry to not get back to you sooner -- I was out of the office for a couple days.
Chat is definitely not something we've positively decided to implement yet, but I believe it could be very useful so I've been investigating and experimenting with it. I'm still in the early stages of that, basically figuring out which technologies might integrate with Mediawiki most readily, the advantages/disadvantages of each, and the effort-to-benefit ratio we might see.
I wrote up a draft proposal, but have been pulled away from chat research for the last couple weeks by work on UploadWizard. It's not really complete (needs to be filled out, have references added, etc), but you can read what I've got down so far here: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Raindrift/Chat_proposal
Once again, please be kind, as it's not done. I'm posting now because the discussion is happening, so it's clearly the time to have it. :)
You're right, spam is a possibility. I'm pretty confident that we could put effective anti-spam measures in place, though. Other sites manage such infrastructure without it being a serious problem. I'm confident we can do it too.
I'm not sure this feature has to be controversial at all--nobody would be required to use it, and participation in the live-help functionality would be strictly opt-in. Providing a way to support new editors, answer their questions about policy, convention, and UI, and connect them to actual established community members seems pretty valuable.
As far a concurrent editing is concerned, that's mostly a thing Neil K is looking at. We're working together inasmuch as whatever chat backend we use would ideally be general-purpose enough to be used everywhere such a thing is needed.
Thanks for writing and getting this conversation started.
-Ian
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