Dear all,
This is a demo of how the Desktop Improvements https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Reading/Web/Desktop_Improvements#What_features_will_be_added project might look once it's finished: http://demian-demo.epizy.com/wiki/Desktop_Improvements_volunteer_demo
Some details are not specified yet, therefore the end result will look somewhat different.
I've implemented this mostly in 2 months' free time, around March-April. Early, partial previews (wmf hosted): http://patchdemo.wmflabs.org/wikis/380ec9d400f1bd8a573e09b015352723/w/ http://patchdemo.wmflabs.org/wikis/b70f4202792d685831e5f957fb5953e1/w/
About me: I'm Demian (aka. Aron), senior software architect, creator of the most recent Wikipedia Dark Theme https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Aron_Manning/Skin_themes for Vector and Timeless skins, among other various contributions and swift bugfixes.
With this preview I'd like to demonstrate what is possible with collaboration. These demos were kept up-to-date with the project's progress and benefited from the WMF developers' work to iron out some details. If that collaboration would go both ways, the project could have been at the same stage possibly a few months ago, nearing the finish line by now.
There are surprisingly few volunteers, even less professionals contributing at MediaWiki, despite its high visibility. The small number of GitHub stars and forks of the replica repos is also negligible compared to the thousands of stars and forks of similarly popular projects.
The following is my opinion. There is a great pool of talent that could contribute to modernizing the aging code-base and designs (both software and UI), but despite the WMF's regular calls for participation, volunteering has a very limited aspect, more similar to interning at a closed-source project, not reminiscent of the contribution patterns of free software. The development - or community - practices can't benefit from a wide range of volunteers. This untapped potential is of great value, lost for the MediaWiki project and the communities using it.
If the WMF wishes to manifest its vision https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Recommendations of an inclusive community, innovation and improved user experience, basic steps can be taken at the back-office in that direction by making development more open and welcoming to volunteers. Openness and collaboration from the developer team would invite more talent and serve as a foundation for a bigger, thriving developer community, similar to open-source projects that succeeded with this model. There is a great unused potential, that's in our core values to invite to the creation of the foundation of free knowledge.
Further resources: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Reading/Web/Desktop_Improvements/Wikimania_St...
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Reading/Web/Desktop_Improvements/Feature_sequ... https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Aron_Manning/Design/Desktop_Improvements...
Demian (aka. Aron)
That is a very impressibe demo indeed! (Though my view on DIP is still that it's an ill-conceived project that refuses to accept that Vector is dated in many aspects and should NOT be extended, ever)
The following may be controversial and/or slightly impolite, I'm sorry, I did not graduate in politics, so I have no idea how to word this better.
Back to the topic: I do agree that WMF is having issues with embracing the input of the community. Making a bugfix is rather simple, but introducing a new feature is just horribly painful. There are reasons to "temper" volunteers when it comes to new features (e.g. maintainability), but still... things are not perfect. Also, when it comes to implementing a large new feature (like DIP) it is understandable that the Foundation would want to do it itself, for a variety of reasons. Not that incorporating volunteers in the process is impossible, it's just hard.
BTW: there are a few volunteers in the community that are really involved and follow WMF's vision and they do get a lot of attention in CRs from WMF employees. Their input is invaluable, but mark my words, this will lead to quick burnout. Nobody wants to do the dirty work for free, in the long term. This is NOT critisism (after all, how do you stop someone from being helpful?), it's rather a reminder of how the current relationship between WMF and the developer community looks like and what this relationship leads to. And to me it looks like WMF gets to choose only the projects that benefit itself.
I don't think this can be changed with another policy, the entire Foundation would have to change its mindset from "making MW suit Wikimedia projects' needs" to "maintaining MediaWiki and meeting the needs of all interested parties". That seems impossible to me for now, though.
śr., 15 lip 2020, 06:29 użytkownik Aron Manning aronmanning5@gmail.com napisał:
Dear all,
This is a demo of how the Desktop Improvements < https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Reading/Web/Desktop_Improvements#What_feature...
project might look once it's finished: http://demian-demo.epizy.com/wiki/Desktop_Improvements_volunteer_demo
Some details are not specified yet, therefore the end result will look somewhat different.
I've implemented this mostly in 2 months' free time, around March-April. Early, partial previews (wmf hosted): http://patchdemo.wmflabs.org/wikis/380ec9d400f1bd8a573e09b015352723/w/ http://patchdemo.wmflabs.org/wikis/b70f4202792d685831e5f957fb5953e1/w/
About me: I'm Demian (aka. Aron), senior software architect, creator of the most recent Wikipedia Dark Theme https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Aron_Manning/Skin_themes for Vector and Timeless skins, among other various contributions and swift bugfixes.
With this preview I'd like to demonstrate what is possible with collaboration. These demos were kept up-to-date with the project's progress and benefited from the WMF developers' work to iron out some details. If that collaboration would go both ways, the project could have been at the same stage possibly a few months ago, nearing the finish line by now.
There are surprisingly few volunteers, even less professionals contributing at MediaWiki, despite its high visibility. The small number of GitHub stars and forks of the replica repos is also negligible compared to the thousands of stars and forks of similarly popular projects.
The following is my opinion. There is a great pool of talent that could contribute to modernizing the aging code-base and designs (both software and UI), but despite the WMF's regular calls for participation, volunteering has a very limited aspect, more similar to interning at a closed-source project, not reminiscent of the contribution patterns of free software. The development
- or community - practices can't benefit from a wide range of volunteers.
This untapped potential is of great value, lost for the MediaWiki project and the communities using it.
If the WMF wishes to manifest its vision < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Recommen...
of an inclusive community, innovation and improved user experience, basic steps can be taken at the back-office in that direction by making development more open and welcoming to volunteers. Openness and collaboration from the developer team would invite more talent and serve as a foundation for a bigger, thriving developer community, similar to open-source projects that succeeded with this model. There is a great unused potential, that's in our core values to invite to the creation of the foundation of free knowledge.
Further resources:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Reading/Web/Desktop_Improvements/Wikimania_St...
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Reading/Web/Desktop_Improvements/Feature_sequ...
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Aron_Manning/Design/Desktop_Improvements...
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