Hoi,
The lack of usability that is inherent in the current tools is enough to
drive me away from editing Wikipedia. At to this the atmosphere that is all
too often just not interested in anything but vested interests and you have
a cocktail that is powerful enough to have me respond to your challenge.
Our environment is long overdue on an update and, this is really hard to
do. I welcome the much anticipated editor and media viewer. Sure, it is not
the finished product yet but it has way more finesse then what we had
before.
What distracts me most is the constant bickering that suggests that we are
not moving forward or that fails to appreciate the extend that we need
change in order to remain relevant with our content. We find that new
editors are mainly from a mobile environment (i include tablets here) and
they are NOT attached to the old ways some aim to have us stick to at all
costs.
We need to change and our aim should be to remain relevant for the next
decennia.
Thanks,
GerardM
On 6 September 2014 10:54, James Salsman <jsalsman(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Where does the idea that user interface changes to the
system which
has already produced the most monumental reference work in the history
of humanity are going to help with its only actual problem, that
people aren't sufficiently inclined to stick around and maintain it?
If there was any evidence that VE or Media Viewer or Flow will make
the projects more attractive to volunteers, I'm sure we would have
heard it by now. But there isn't. Nor is there any evidence that any
of the several Editor Engagement projects have made a dent in
volunteer attrition rates, despite their success in encouraging tiny
subsets of very new editors to contribute a few minutes more work.
The present set of dramatic distractions from attention to the
vanishing volunteer corps only highlights that Foundation leadership
has no ability to focus on the only strategic goal they haven't
achieved: retaining volunteers. Because it is so much easier to
pretend that readers need WYSIWYG or a lightbox or can't figure out
how to indent replies; since readership numbers aren't an actual
problem (when mobile users are added to desktop pageviews) this
guarantees the false appearance of success in the eyes of everyone who
doesn't see through the transparent cop-out. Where is the evidence
that the status quo user interface from 2005 would not have done just
as well in every measurable aspect of movement success?
Steven Walling wrote:
...
We practically can't and don't take on initiatives that directly
try to provide more free time or money to editors....
That is absolutely false. Individual Engagement Grants have recently
been proven to be substantially more cost-effective in achieving the
Foundation's stated goals than any other form of grant spending, on a
per-dollar basis. Is there any evidence that any Foundation
engineering effort of the past five years has done as well? I haven't
seen any.
When the Foundation spends on copyright advocacy, those initiatives
directly try to provide more economic empowerment to the small
fraction of contributors who stand to benefit from whatever additional
government documents or panorama images they hope to free up. But
volunteers who want to update information on the side effects of
commonly prescribed drugs get nothing.
When the Foundation spends on attempts to oppose the Trans Pacific
Partnership, those initiatives directly try to provide more free time
and money to the small subset of editors threatened by lengthening of
copyright terms. But editors who want to help translate introductory
material foundational to engineering skills literacy get nothing.
Who at the Foundation bears the responsibility for deciding which of
initiatives that might benefit the real needs of vanishing volunteers
are funded, and why aren't they held accountable for their record
since 2007?
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