[Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor "temporary" opt-out

[Martijn Hoekstra]

On Tue, Aug 6, 2013 at 5:06 PM, Kevin Wayne Williams <
kwwilliams at kwwilliams.com> wrote:

> Op 2013/08/06 7:55, Martijn Hoekstra schreef:
>
>> On Tue, Aug 6, 2013 at 4:51 PM, Kevin Wayne Williams <
>> kwwilliams at kwwilliams.com> wrote:
>>
>>    Their argument for
>>> 'opt-out' is based solely upon the quality and quantity of testing that
>>> it
>>> affords to VE. VE is not a mission-critical feature: while we have
>>> concerns
>>> about Wikipedia's sustainability, there's no question that it has
>>> survived
>>> for years and will survive for years more. The stability of the site is
>>> much more important than testing this code, and the testing strategy of
>>> presenting it as if it was functioning software and seeing what people
>>> did
>>> with it wasn't a reasonable decision: it was completely and absolutely
>>> irresponsible.
>>>
>>>
>>>  Opt-out with a beta or experimental notice (as it is now when enabled on
>> en.wiki) doesn't seem to have the problem of presenting it if it were
>> mature software you present as the pivotal problem in this post.
>>
> Their deployment strategy (not labeling the software as beta on the user
> interface, changing the function of the existing buttons, no warning when
> the software was entered, deploying it to new editors that had no chance of
> having seen notices about it) hinged on getting the unwary and uninformed
> to press the "edit" button without realizing what they were getting into.
> Saying that it is reasonable *now* doesn't excuse the five weeks that
> preceded it.
>
> KWW


No, and I'm very concerned about the deployment as it happened, as well as
its immediate aftermath. I believe those are incredibly important and hard
discussions we as a movement (and that includes you, WMF employees!) have
to have, lest things go this wrong in the future again. I find the
discussion on having opt-in or opt-out in the current situation where the
button is clearly marked as beta to be unimportant or even trivial in
comparison, and think that if we keep talking about the last implementation
disagreements, we are taking attention away from the issue that should be
discussed, which is how we can avoid a fiasco like this the next time.

--Martijn


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