[Foundation-l] [WikiEN-l] Flagged Protection update for April 29

[William Pietri]

On 04/29/2010 06:32 PM, Tim Starling wrote:
> William Pietri wrote:
>    
>> As requested, here's the weekly Flagged Protection update.
>>
>>
>> We continue to work on UI display issues and on getting up a Labs
>> version of the German Wikipedia. We're pretty close to release, and we
>> believe only minor UI issues remain.
>>      
> Between this update and the last one, the only commits made to the
> FlaggedRevs extension were localisation updates imported from
> translatewiki.net. But your language here implies that something
> actually happened this week. Could you perhaps be more specific as to
> what sort of work was done?
>    

Sure. The resolution to the apparent paradox is that not all useful work 
immediately results in commits. In particular, the major UI issue being 
worked on can be seen on this page:

http://flaggedrevs.labs.wikimedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Vince_%282005%29

In the upper right, you'll note a lock icon with (+) next to it. The UI 
mavens involved, Howie and Parul, feel that the current version isn't 
consistent with the direction the usability team has for the interface, 
so they're trying to come up with something that looks and works better. 
However, getting something that satisfies them and also looks and works 
properly in all browsers has been a challenge. I understand the 
Usability Initiative developers have offered technical assistance with that.

This is pretty typical pre-release fit-and-finish stuff. I know it can 
be frustrating for project stakeholders, as it appears like not much is 
happening, but given the scale at which Wikipedia works and the 
importance of this project being well received, I think we're better off 
taking a bit longer for a solid user experience, especially the bit that 
appears on article pages.

I know some additional work was done on cleaning up names, labels, and 
text in the interface; if you're curious about exactly what went on, I 
can ask. My understanding is that is almost done, though.

William