[Foundation-l] Sue Gardner, Erik Möller , William Pietri: Where is FlaggedRevisions?

[MZMcBride]

William Pietri wrote:
> On 02/28/2010 08:59 PM, MZMcBride wrote:
>> I watch a live feed of every edit and action to the FlaggedRevisions labs
>> site <http://flaggedrevs.labs.wikimedia.org> and I've been the one doing the
>> admin promotions on there since September 2009.
>> 
>> Can you point to where you're seeing this feedback you're talking about?
> 
> Off the top of my head, direct email, plus these pages:
> 
> http://flaggedrevs.labs.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia:Bug_reports_and_enhanceme
> nt_requests
> http://flaggedrevs.labs.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Main_Page

Did you, uh, happen to click those links? In the first link, the page hasn't
been edited since December 2009. The second link is almost exclusively
various users asking for adminship and me responding to them. When you said
"the community doesn't yet believe the software is ready, at least judging
by the last round of feedback on the labs site," I figured there might have
been something substantive (and recent) you were basing these comments on.
Silly me.

> We get together and talk. In the WMF office, mainly. It's faster.

And it obliterates any possibility for a paper trail or accountability when
deadlines are missed. Though in a George W. Bush-esque style, apparently no
deadlines are being set. It's an interesting thought experiment if you
extend this "don't set a deadline for projects" model: that multi-million
dollar blockbuster? Due in theaters sometime, maybe.

>> Who exactly is working on these user interface issues? What are they doing?
>> I'm curious.
> 
> Howie, Aaron, and Parul all worked on that. The visual design is done
> and, I believe, implemented. There are some language changes going on now.

Got links? Nearly all Wikimedia-related software development has been
publicly visible since the beginning. If there's software, language, or
usability work being done, where are the links?

>> You "ardently hope"? Aren't you the person in charge of this project?
>> 
> Sort of. Project manager means I'm responsible for pushing it through,
> not that I'm particularly in charge of it. In my view, the community's
> ultimately in charge.

This is a joke, right? This is subtle humor?

> When I have enough data to give everybody a date I have some confidence
> in, I'll do it. But given that speed is the primary driver here, I'm not
> going to increase the workload of already busy people, thereby delaying
> the project, just to create dates whose value is questionable.

"Speed is the primary driver here"? I think you're just trolling now.

> I don't appreciate the implication that I'm somehow trying to block this
> project, or that there's some grand conspiracy to block it. I want to
> get it done. Everybody involved wants to get it done. None of us
> benefits by not getting it done.

Honest-to-God, nobody is asking that you put a man on the moon. It's some
PHP that's conveniently already been written. Enable the damn extension,
already.

[I've omitted the pseudo-Kumbaya, we don't have any money or resources, look
at Twitter! bullshit. It's not worth a proper reply.]

MZMcBride
z at mzmcbride.com