[Foundation-l] Why is the software out of reach of the community?

Tue Jan 20 08:53:56 UTC 2009

Hoi.
The Brion is not God. He and the other half gods, have sufficient enthusiasm
for all the weird and wonderful stuff we throw at them. They even spend
considerable effort on Semantic MediaWiki and Denny et al are the first to
acknowledge this and to say that they provided valuable insights. It is not
that they are not enthusiastic, it is that they have a life as well. They
also have to take care of our first priority and that is to make sure that
the show stays on the road.

To get a sense of perspective, the Stanton perspective will take some
890.000 dollar. A large amount indeed but it will not bring all those things
that we would like. The WMF is slowly but surely ramping up the professional
organisation. This organisation will never bring all the things that I want
not what you want. and certainly not all the things that the
communit(y./ies) says (it/they) want(s).
Thanks,
       GerardM

2009/1/19 Brian <Brian.Mingus at colorado.edu>

> Gerard, I'm not sure I understood the full context of your e-mail. There is
> only one thing stopping it from going live in my opinion - developer
> enthusiasm. I don't think thats how things are supposed to work.
>
> On Mon, Jan 19, 2009 at 11:04 AM, Gerard Meijssen <
> gerard.meijssen at gmail.com
> > wrote:
>
> > Hoi,
> > I think it is correct. There is also nothing in there stopping Semantic
> > MediaWiki from going live.
> > Thanks,
> >     GerardM
> >
> > 2009/1/19 Brian <Brian.Mingus at colorado.edu>
> >
> > > This community, which takes quite a bit of effort to communicate with,
> > > effort which I have not seen from the development team:
> > >
> > > > Any changes to the software must be gradual and reversible. We need
> to
> > > make
> > > > sure that any changes contribute positively to the community, as
> > > ultimately
> > > > determined by everybody in Wikipedia, in full consultation with the
> > > > community consensus. -- Jimbo Wales<
> > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jimbo_Wales>
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > > I've been told by a volunteer developer in that this quote is
> irrelevant.
> > I
> > > wonder how many people believe that is true.
> > >
> > > On Mon, Jan 19, 2009 at 7:31 AM, Domas Mituzas <midom.lists at gmail.com
> > > >wrote:
> > >
> > > > Hello Brian,
> > > >
> > > > thanks for all  your insights, bashing and vocal support of your pet
> > > > ideas.
> > > >
> > > > I understand, that SMW is academically interesting concept (though
> > > > there're contradicting ideas in academia too, suggesting natural
> > > > language processing as an alternative, and this seems where currently
> > > > research tries to go too), and it provides "usability" in niche cases
> > > > (academic data crunching).
> > > >
> > > > I fail to see why you associate SMW with general usability we're
> > > > trying to think about? Is that something we simple mortals cannot
> > > > understand, or are you simply out of touch from reality?
> > > >
> > > > See, our project is special.
> > > >
> > > > a) We have mass collaboration at large
> > > > b) We end up having mass collaboration on individual articles and
> > topics
> > > > c) We have mega-mass readership
> > > > d) We have massive scope and depth
> > > >
> > > > And, oh well, we have to run software development to facilitate all
> > > > that. As you may notice, the above list puts quite some huge
> > > > constraints on what we can do.
> > > > All our features end up being incremental, and even though in theory
> > > > they are easy to revert, it is the mass collaboration that picks it
> up
> > > > and moves to a stage where it is not that easy (and that happens
> > > > everywhere, where lots of work is being done).
> > > >
> > > > So, you are attacking templates, which have helped to deal with
> nearly
> > > > everything we do (and are tiny, compared to overall content they
> > > > facilitate), and were part of incremental development of the site and
> > > > where editing community was going. Of course, there are ways to make
> > > > some of our template management way better (template catalogues, more
> > > > visual editing of parameters, less special characters for casual
> > > > editors), but they generally are how we imagine and do information
> > > > management.
> > > >
> > > > Now, if you want to come up with academic attitudes, and start
> telling
> > > > how ontology is important, and all the semantic meanings have to be
> > > > highlighted, sure, go on, talk to community, they can do it without
> > > > software support too - by normalizing templates, using templates for
> > > > tagging relations, then use various external tools to build
> > > > information overlays on top of that.  Make us believe stuff like that
> > > > has to be deployed by showing initiative in the communities, not by
> > > > showing initiative by external parties.
> > > >
> > > > Once it comes to actual software engineering, we have quite limited
> > > > resources, and quite important mandate and cause.
> > > > We have to make sure, that readers will be able to read, editors will
> > > > be able to edit, and foundation will still be able to support the
> > > > project.
> > > > We may not always try to be exceptionally perfect (Tim does ;-), but
> > > > that is because we do not want to be too stressed either.
> > > >
> > > > So, when it comes to reader community, software is doing work for
> > > > them. Some of readers end up engineering software to make it better.
> > > > When it comes to editing community, software does the work for them.
> > > > Some of editors end up engineering software to make it better.
> > > >
> > > > Which community are you talking about?
> > > >
> > > > BR,
> > > > --
> > > > Domas Mituzas -- http://dammit.lt/ -- [[user:midom]]
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
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