[Foundation-l] Pending Changes development update: September 27

[geni]

On 29 September 2010 01:25, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:

> And how should they know what the consensus is which they should promise to respect without determining it?   They can't very >well just turn off an extension while it is use on hundreds of articles.  If the consensus is so clear (that Danese and Erik would not >be required to make a judgment call) that en.WP doesn't want to use Pending Changes, then why are en.WP users *still using it*?

Because there are not that many admins prepared to walk into a direct
conflict with Jimbo:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Protect-text&diff=prev&oldid=384578896


>
> And since it has worked so very well, you think it best continue with that pattern?
>
> Seriously, do whatever you want to about Pending Changes on en.WP.  You are complaining about WMF not respecting en.WP >decisions.  You don't need some formal announcement of respect.  Just make your own decisions without asking WMF to approve. >That is what real respect is.  Is something you give to yourself by having confidence enough in your decisions to move forward with >them.  Asking others to promise to approve of your decisions undermines respect.  There is a giant gap between not interfering with >a decision and endorsing it.  And respect is only about the former.  WMF doesn't need and shouldn't have to go around endorsing >decisions made on each of the wikis. In this aspect, en.WP has failed to mature to the level of most of the other wikis for far to long. > Self-governing means doing it yourself.

The problem with that is that when the foundation decides to do
something it usually translates into doing it to en. Any self
goverment on en will get overruled by the foundation far more often
than it does on any other wiki which makes things tricky.


> I don't think you realize how absolutely disrespectful tone of the entire "en.WP wants to trial run an implementation of Flagged >Revisions" has come across to me as someone who is associated with other WMF wikis. From the very beginning and still >continuing with your recent posts; and I even edit en.WP significantly.  Do you realize the development man-hours that have been >put into adapting the extension to the very specific set of requirements that en.WP demanded on having before you all were even >willing to even talk about whether you might permanently use it?

So you object to en trying the self government thing and saying that
it really didn't want Flagged revs.


> And the entire time you all constantly complained about what was taking the devs so long to fulfill your detailed demands? (It was >at some phases comparatively quick or at the very worst normal)

No some from en were. The opposition to flagged revs generally kept
quiet on the subject.


>I frankly hope you all decide to stop using Pending Changes and to forget about ever further testing it.

Sounds great doesn't it? Unfortunately things get kinda political. See
the foundation has for years been bouncing off various media scares
about accuracy by saying this flagged revs thing will come along soon
and fix everything. Makes it hard for the foundation to accept that it
won't work. Throw in Jimbo's support for flagged revs and you've got a
lovey political mess. Thats before you get to the internal en
politics.

>Maybe then some developer will find some time to work on Lilypond.  Or *any* somewhat functional way to do musical notation.  I >am not picky at all, because what there is now is NOTHING.  And that is Bug 189; as in it was the one-hundred and eighty ninth bug >placed on Bugzilla back in 2004. And even if not Bug 189, there may more be time for one of the numerous other development >issues which is not even a blip on en.WP's political radar.  Just hopefully, at the very least, it will be something that can possibly be >used somewhere else in WMF land *in addition* to en.WP.
>

Err we got Tiff files not much I know. In practice however it appears
there are only 2.5 people on earth who know mediawiki well enough to
do code review. 0.5 are ill, 1 is about to become a father and 1 has
only recently been rehired on a 2 hour-per-day contract. I wouldn't
get your hopes up.

>
> Here is a challenge for anyone else on the list who is as turned-off as I am about how many of the en.WP editors have approached >this whole issue from Day 1:  Let's make an effort only to respond to threads for the rest of the year when we can provide examples >of the issues from wikis other than en.WP.

You might want to go careful there. Things like the current state of
de are part of the fight over flagged revs on en.

-- 
geni