[WikiEN-l] stable versions

[Florence Devouard]

Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> On 9/9/07, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
>> I'm not a coder at all, I'm an editor. If I'm not supposed to believe
>> anything I read on the mailing list without checking out SVN
>> repositories and such to confirm it first-hand, what's the point in
>> reading the mailing lists at all?
> 
> You don't have to be a coder to ask critical questions like "Have you
> actually coded anything yet?".
> 
> As Grease Monkee points out.. We don't need software to have stable
> versions. We do need software to make stable versions work really
> well.  Because the community of non-coders allowed a group of vocal
> opposers to stifle progress by claiming that there was mysterious
> software coming "any day now" we've had nothing all this time, and far
> more importantly we've lost a year of possible experience with stable
> version like features which could have helped to shape the
> functionality of the software.
> 
> The software that has been implemented has had input from a great
> number of people, including really extensive input from people in the
> German Wikipedia community.
> 
> There are some things I dislike about it. I would rather that we kept
> section edit links on the stable page, and simply made a diff appear
> at the top of the edit screen when you click an edit link from the
> stable version.
> 
> I'd also prefer that once a user has edited a page a cookie is set
> which will cause them to view the most recent version of that page,
> this way inattentive newbies will not really know that their change
> didn't really go live the moment they made it. Plus, once you've
> edited you really should be exposed to the whole sausage making
> process. :)
> 
> But overall I think it's pretty good, and I'm sure there will be lots
> of requested changes once it's live. I would have preferred that the
> features be more driven by experience than informed speculation, but
> we have what we have..
> 
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Another thing I would like to see is for an anonymous editor visiting 
the website, have the opportunity to very simply change the viewing 
system "view by default flagged versions when available" or "always see 
the latest version for all articles". Toggle type.

Otherwise, I mostly hope that there will be discussions, plain rejection 
of the tool or acceptance with improvment.

What I hope will NOT happen is a system where editors say

"we are happy to have this system only if there are improvementx X and 
Y". Then setting the system on with a promise that the improvements are 
coming in soon. Then see a situation such as the Single Login, where the 
so-called improvements take 5 years to be done. This would be very wrong.

Ant