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

[Peter Southwood]

To me it looks like a fairly small number of editors are making a fairly 
large amount of noise, A very small number making a disproportionately large 
amount, and a much larger number, probably the majority, have not even 
bothered to comment at all. I also have not analysed the numbers, but to me 
it looks like the numbers who have made one liner comments that they approve 
is probably the same order of magnitude as the number who protest 
incessantly. This is Wikipedia, there are always a small number who make a 
lot of noise. After a while fewer people take them seriously. I start to get 
the impression that there are now some people who have invested so much 
effort into making a big deal of this that they now feel obliged to make an 
even bigger deal so they can feel justified in doing so.  Maybe I'm wrong, 
maybe the numbers do indicate a wdespread and deep seated sense of 
alienation. Maybe not. Time will probably tell, and hey, someone who is 
prepared to approach the analysis scientifcally may get a dissertation out 
of it. Stranger things have happened.. I also think the approach was flawed, 
but I appreciate the reasons and I am prepared to assume good faith.
Cheers,
Peter
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kevin Wayne Williams" <kwwilliams at kwwilliams.com>
To: "Wikimedia Mailing List" <wikimedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Tuesday, August 06, 2013 9:02 PM
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor "temporary" opt-out


> I've made no claim about "most" long-term editors, but any perusal of the 
> two RFCs and the Feedback page would demonstrate that there's a fairly 
> large group.
>
> Or are you arguing that deploying bug-ridden software that corrupts 
> articles, hangs browsers, crashes unexpectedly, and doesn't have 
> sufficient features to edit basic articles is somehow OK as long the site 
> survives the disruption? Even if it can be shown that development knew 
> that was the case prior to deployment, and chose to deploy it anyway?
>
> KWW
>
> Op 2013/08/06 10:54, Peter Southwood schreef:
>> Evidence that most long term editors are frothing at the mouth would be a 
>> good start, evidence that the rollout of VE has had a significant impact 
>> on long term editor retention, either way, even evidence that WP is in 
>> rapid decline that is in any way related to VE, positively or negatively,
>> Cheers,
>> Peter
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kevin Wayne Williams" 
>> <kwwilliams at kwwilliams.com>
>> To: "Wikimedia Mailing List" <wikimedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
>> Sent: Tuesday, August 06, 2013 6:14 PM
>> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor "temporary" opt-out
>>
>>
>>> Op 2013/08/06 9:07, Peter Southwood schreef:
>>>> Do you have data to back up your claims?
>>>> Peter
>>> What do you need? Evidence that Wikipedia has survived for years? 
>>> Evidence that its decline is not so rapid as to indicate an emergency 
>>> situation? Quotes from Erik where he states that he disrupted English 
>>> Wikipedia in order to create a test bed? The first two are judgement 
>>> calls, for the third there's an embarrassment of riches. Let me know 
>>> what you need.
>>>
>>> KWW
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kevin Wayne Williams" 
>>>> <kwwilliams at kwwilliams.com>
>>>> To: "Wikimedia Mailing List" <wikimedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
>>>> Sent: Tuesday, August 06, 2013 4:51 PM
>>>> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Visual Editor "temporary" opt-out
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Op 2013/08/05 23:44, MZMcBride schreef:
>>>>>> This leaves us to consider the biggest question: opt-in vs. opt-out. 
>>>>>> Erik and James are both quite smart, they are true Wikimedians, and 
>>>>>> they make reasonable points about choosing opt-out over opt-in.
>>>>> This is the point on which we fundamentally disagree. 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.
>>>>>
>>>>> KWW
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Wikimedia-l mailing list
>>>>> Wikimedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>>>>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, 
>>>>> <mailto:wikimedia-l-request at lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Wikimedia-l mailing list
>>>> Wikimedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>>>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, 
>>>> <mailto:wikimedia-l-request at lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Wikimedia-l mailing list
>>> Wikimedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, 
>>> <mailto:wikimedia-l-request at lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikimedia-l mailing list
>> Wikimedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, 
>> <mailto:wikimedia-l-request at lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia-l mailing list
> Wikimedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, 
> <mailto:wikimedia-l-request at lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>