I have to say that I have the same expirance with the current process for requesting commit access.
I currently have access to SVN, it was given to me 2 years ago by TimStarling. But i changed my key(s) but it didn't change for Wikimedia. So I requested Sumana to close my old account and give me a new account with a better name.
This was her responds:
Hi Huib,
I apologize for the late response. After some discussion, we decided that the best way to proceed is for you to submit your proposed improvements as a patch in bugzilla.wikimedia.org, or make your extension public on mediawiki.org (http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Category:Extensions). This gives us a much better idea of what your proposal is and makes it a lot easier to review.
Sincerely, Priyanka Dhanda
So I was already given access, but by error I lost the key and now got removed.
I don't really think the current proces is helping to get more volunteers...
Best,
Huib Laurens 2011/11/5 Neil Kandalgaonkar neilk@wikimedia.org
Olivier, I'm truly sorry you had such a negative experience. This is not an acceptable situation. We have an inconsistent process, and one which is a bit heavyweight when our resourcing for it is rather lightweight.
I wish you had found the patience to assume good faith. There is no reason for accusations that we don't want good developers. Of course we *want* them. If we are failing to act like it, it wasn't a personal slam at you.
And, if I may be forgiven for white-knighting, Sumana's job is to needle the rest of us so we don't forget about concerns like yours and she generally does it very well. And she did sound an apologetic note into the email she sent you. So IMO she's not the problem here. Why she played a game of telephone here is a bit of a mystery to me though -- maybe she just wanted to be sure that *someone* pinged you since it had been so long. IMO the developer who reviewed your code should have contacted you directly.
I had a look at the module you wrote. I share some of the same concerns about scalability, but that's not really the issue.
I have some experience with user-contributed module archives, having administered some shared community resources for Perl, Python, and so on. The cultural differences and relative successes were interesting. The Python people wanted to have a review process, and a GUI interface, and binary modules precompiled, and so on and so on, and their projects never really got off the ground. Perl's CPAN started off as a simple FTP site where almost anyone could upload code. Guess which one ultimately succeeded. The point is, IMO there's relatively little payoff for having *any* review process for modules. Just have a way to report and remove malware and be done with it. As long as it's clear that the Foundation doesn't endorse the software there, what is the problem? Maybe we can also have some kind of badge for "reviewed" or "as seen on Wikipedia" for the stuff we consider good enough to deploy on big sites.
We already more or less do this -- for instance, there are modules by GSoC students that are clearly not ready for prime time, and they are marked accordingly.
On 11/4/11 11:47 PM, MZMcBride wrote:
The long and short of my advice is this: fuck MediaWiki. If they're unwilling to accept your contributions, there are a lot of other FOSS projects that would be happy to have you. Thrilled to have you, even. I'd strongly encourage finding one. :-)
And why should he listen to you, when you are unwilling to follow your own advice?
-- Neil Kandalgaonkar |) neilk@wikimedia.org
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Btw, key issues will be getting better with labs and git.
Labs and Gerrit have interfaces to let a user update their pubkeys. If the server running svn starts running the update it also might be possible for that key change to affect pubkeys for svn.
So in the future, an issue with someone losing their keys can be solved quickly by the user themselves simply by logging into labs (and if you forget your password to, it's MW based so you just do a password reset) and deleting the old key and importing a new one. Right now you'll also have to update git keys in gerrit separately but hopefully in the future gerrit is modified so that it can draw from the same keystore.
On Sat, 05 Nov 2011 01:52:46 -0700, Huib Laurens sterkebak@gmail.com wrote:
I have to say that I have the same expirance with the current process for requesting commit access.
I currently have access to SVN, it was given to me 2 years ago by TimStarling. But i changed my key(s) but it didn't change for Wikimedia. So I requested Sumana to close my old account and give me a new account with a better name.
This was her responds:
Hi Huib,
I apologize for the late response. After some discussion, we decided that the best way to proceed is for you to submit your proposed improvements as a patch in bugzilla.wikimedia.org, or make your extension public on mediawiki.org (http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Category:Extensions). This gives us a much better idea of what your proposal is and makes it a lot easier to review.
Sincerely, Priyanka Dhanda
So I was already given access, but by error I lost the key and now got removed.
I don't really think the current proces is helping to get more volunteers...
Best,
Huib Laurens 2011/11/5 Neil Kandalgaonkar neilk@wikimedia.org
Olivier, I'm truly sorry you had such a negative experience. This is not an acceptable situation. We have an inconsistent process, and one which is a bit heavyweight when our resourcing for it is rather lightweight.
I wish you had found the patience to assume good faith. There is no reason for accusations that we don't want good developers. Of course we *want* them. If we are failing to act like it, it wasn't a personal slam at you.
And, if I may be forgiven for white-knighting, Sumana's job is to needle the rest of us so we don't forget about concerns like yours and she generally does it very well. And she did sound an apologetic note into the email she sent you. So IMO she's not the problem here. Why she played a game of telephone here is a bit of a mystery to me though -- maybe she just wanted to be sure that *someone* pinged you since it had been so long. IMO the developer who reviewed your code should have contacted you directly.
I had a look at the module you wrote. I share some of the same concerns about scalability, but that's not really the issue.
I have some experience with user-contributed module archives, having administered some shared community resources for Perl, Python, and so on. The cultural differences and relative successes were interesting. The Python people wanted to have a review process, and a GUI interface, and binary modules precompiled, and so on and so on, and their projects never really got off the ground. Perl's CPAN started off as a simple FTP site where almost anyone could upload code. Guess which one ultimately succeeded. The point is, IMO there's relatively little payoff for having *any* review process for modules. Just have a way to report and remove malware and be done with it. As long as it's clear that the Foundation doesn't endorse the software there, what is the problem? Maybe we can also have some kind of badge for "reviewed" or "as seen on Wikipedia" for the stuff we consider good enough to deploy on big sites.
We already more or less do this -- for instance, there are modules by GSoC students that are clearly not ready for prime time, and they are marked accordingly.
On 11/4/11 11:47 PM, MZMcBride wrote:
The long and short of my advice is this: fuck MediaWiki. If they're unwilling to accept your contributions, there are a lot of other FOSS projects that would be happy to have you. Thrilled to have you, even.
I'd
strongly encourage finding one. :-)
And why should he listen to you, when you are unwilling to follow your own advice?
-- Neil Kandalgaonkar |) neilk@wikimedia.org
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
On Sat, Nov 5, 2011 at 4:52 AM, Huib Laurens sterkebak@gmail.com wrote:
I have to say that I have the same expirance with the current process for requesting commit access.
I currently have access to SVN, it was given to me 2 years ago by TimStarling. But i changed my key(s) but it didn't change for Wikimedia. So I requested Sumana to close my old account and give me a new account with a better name.
This was her responds:
Hi Huib,
I apologize for the late response. After some discussion, we decided that the best way to proceed is for you to submit your proposed improvements as a patch in bugzilla.wikimedia.org, or make your extension public on mediawiki.org (http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Category:Extensions). This gives us a much better idea of what your proposal is and makes it a lot easier to review.
Sincerely, Priyanka Dhanda
So I was already given access, but by error I lost the key and now got removed.
I don't really think the current proces is helping to get more volunteers...
When did this happen? Can you give me the ticket #? This absolutely should not have happened. If you have an existing account and you just need a key updated that's an automatic approval.
-Chad
On 06/11/11 03:49, Chad wrote:
When did this happen? Can you give me the ticket #? This absolutely should not have happened. If you have an existing account and you just need a key updated that's an automatic approval.
I can't find any ticket, or any discussion in my private email archive. It was probably requested by private email to Priyanka and then discussed by phone or in person. My recollections are fairly vague.
We don't have any process for revoking commit access at the moment, but Huib's request for a key change presented an opportunity to review his access level in the wake of his on-wiki banning. See:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Abigor https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=block&page=User%3AAbigor https://nl.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Speciaal:Logboeken&type=block&page=User%3AAbigor
An on-wiki ban doesn't disqualify someone from getting commit access. But we have to weigh the scale of someone's positive contributions against the risk of disruptive or malicious activity.
-- Tim Starling
Hoi, Again, and sadly so, I have to say that Huib has been doing good work for the language committee. We do not have an issue with him or his work. I am not convinced that there are sufficient reasons to restrict Huib from doing the work that he does. I have in the past indicated that I am willing to mentor him, I have indicated that he does NOT want to work on nl.wp. He has not been active on nl.wp for quite some time.
All in all, I am not pleased about how this is going from bad to worse. I am frustrated that Huib is prevented from doing the work he does / did so well. In my opinion we are all as a consequence losers. Thanks, GerardM
On 7 November 2011 00:57, Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 06/11/11 03:49, Chad wrote:
When did this happen? Can you give me the ticket #? This absolutely should not have happened. If you have an existing account and you just need a key updated that's an automatic approval.
I can't find any ticket, or any discussion in my private email archive. It was probably requested by private email to Priyanka and then discussed by phone or in person. My recollections are fairly vague.
We don't have any process for revoking commit access at the moment, but Huib's request for a key change presented an opportunity to review his access level in the wake of his on-wiki banning. See:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Abigor < https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=block&am...
< https://nl.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Speciaal:Logboeken&type=block...
An on-wiki ban doesn't disqualify someone from getting commit access. But we have to weigh the scale of someone's positive contributions against the risk of disruptive or malicious activity.
-- Tim Starling
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
On 05/11/11 09:52, Huib Laurens wrote:
I have to say that I have the same expirance with the current process for requesting commit access.
I currently have access to SVN, it was given to me 2 years ago by TimStarling. But i changed my key(s) but it didn't change for Wikimedia. So I requested Sumana to close my old account and give me a new account with a better name.
This was her responds:
Hi Huib,
I apologize for the late response. After some discussion, we decided that the best way to proceed is for you to submit your proposed improvements as a patch in bugzilla.wikimedia.org, or make your extension public on mediawiki.org (http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Category:Extensions). This gives us a much better idea of what your proposal is and makes it a lot easier to review.
Sincerely, Priyanka Dhanda
So I was already given access, but by error I lost the key and now got removed.
I don't really think the current proces is helping to get more volunteers...
Best,
Huib Laurens
WTF? I think Priyanka completely confused your request when making your reply. Getting the key replace should be no problem. I recommend you to try to an op on irc.
Huib Laurens sterkebak@gmail.com writes:
I requested Sumana to close my old account and give me a new account with a better name.
This was her responds:
[... SNIP ...]
Sincerely, Priyanka Dhanda
In case it isn't clear from this email response that you got, Sumana is not Priyanka. Priyanka left WMF a few months ago and Sumana has taken over some of her responsibilities.
Mark.
wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org