Wil Sinclair wrote:
>I think there is a lot of value and promise in
Flow. But it is a huge paradigm
shift for onwiki communication, and it must not
surprise users under any
circumstances. Maybe someone has the right figure handy, but I wouldn't be
surprised if, after archives are added up, there is more discussion across
all wikis than content. If so, one might argue that this is a bigger change
than VE and it certainly dwarfs the impact that most editors experience
from the MV rollout.
======
It is an interesting question as to whether there is more "talk" than total
content at WP. lt's an empirical question, maybe someone has the answer.
Regardless, Flow is bigger than VE in impact for the active volunteer
community because there will be no opt-outing out of it. If and when it is
installed, it will be the one and only available option for everyone. If
that software is broken in any significant way, I find it hard to put into
words how "messy" an issue it will be for WMF. Think the VE debacle plus
the MV dustup to the second power — with no easy solution, since all
existing talk pages will be archived and going back nearly impossible
without fully reverting every page which it touched.
Flow must, must, must be proven to be not only 100% fully functional
software but to represent an improvement over the status quo in actual
practice on some wiki other than En-WP or De-WP before even a limited roll
out is made in En-WP or De-WP.
This software is a mere blip on the horizon for most En-WP volunteers at
the moment. It will become the biggest of issues. If the software doesn't
work perfectly, if the introduction is not done incrementally and with full
community consent, things are going to go nuclear. That's not a threat or
an idle prediction, that's a statement of a mathematically certain fact.
Tim Davenport
Carrite on WP /// Randy from Boise on WPO
Corvallis, OR (USA)