On Wed, Jan 20, 2016 at 12:58 AM Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
Once the VisualEditor was fit for purpose and a good deployment strategy had been developed, the English Wikipedia community overwhelmingly supported rolling it out. (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_125... )
That is for new accounts only. Without an account, still no VE for you, even if you are probably the one needing it most.
It's not Luddism, it's not "resistance to change", it's not "power users" grumpy about newbies having an easier time, it's not anything like that. It's that in the state it was initially released in, the thing did not work.
No one said "Luddism", except to defend against its use. Odd.
So yes, by all means, let's try new things. But try:
1: Asking us what we actually want, before coding something up and feeling obligated to push it out. People are a lot more receptive to something they asked for than something being forced upon them. That's been an issue with Flow. It's not that it doesn't work well (though it doesn't), it's that it wasn't wanted to start with. So instead of "Here's the new discussion system", ask "What can we do to make our system of discussion better?"
Listening to what editors want is important. ONLY listening to wad editors want is bad. People often don't know what they want or need, until they see it. Compare the famous (possibly misattributed) Henry Ford quote: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
Also, veteran editors do not represent the readers or casual/newbie editors; their needs are often quite different.
2: Make sure it works. Have an opt-in beta phase. Doesn't have to be perfect, but certainly make sure it's not breaking page formatting all over the place. You'll notice, for example, that there wasn't really any resistance to HHVM. It worked well, it was desirable, it was clearly fit for purpose. So no, there isn't just a reflexive change aversion. Though the previous missteps and hamfisted followups have, rather ironically, created a lot of the reflexive change aversion that people said was there.
Wrong example. The HHMV switch was a back-end change that should have had no visible effect. As long as the servers are fast, people don't really care what's going on there. Did e.g. English Wikipedia actually vote on HHMV?
3: Be nice (but NOT condescending or patronizing) if an issue comes up. "Superprotect" alienated people right quickly, and turned what could have been a productive (if tense) conversation into a war. Same with refusal to budge on VE and the arrogant tone several people took. Yes, some people might be rude about objecting to the change. Don't sink to their level. If they call the new software a steaming pile, ask "Could you offer more concrete feedback?"
Superprotect was used to revert an admin action on de.wikipedia, an action that might actually fall under U.S. or German computer sabotage laws. This was hailed as some heroic action by that vocal group I keep mentioning, when it can easily be seen as someone abusing the privileges given by the Foundation (as owners of the servers) to deactivate functionality put in place by the Foundation. The creation and subsequent use of superprotect was not exactly the most wise decision ever undertaken, but neither was the original sabotage (literally so; using access to a machine to stop it from working, just not using a wooden shoe). And while it is always good to ask for more concrete feedback, it is even better to offer it to begin with.
4: Don't surprise people. Not everyone follows the Village Pumps or what have you. If a major new feature is set to roll out, do banners, do watchlist notices, do whatever it takes, but make sure people know. When Mediaviewer was rolled out, all of a sudden, I was just having images act completely different. I had no idea what was going on. People are more amenable to change if you brace them for it. Even better, do that to develop a rollout strategy in advance with the community. (You already know they want it; they asked for it. Right?)
The Foundation appears to be doing this already. I even saw a mail about it today.
5: If at all feasible, offer an easy opt-out. People are actually more likely to give something a decent try if they know they can switch back if they don't like it.
IIRC, both VE and MediaViewer offered opt-out from the beginning; the MV opt-out just was "below the fold" or something.
6: Show willingness to budge. "No, we won't do ACTRIAL, period." "You get VE, like it or not." "You're getting Mediaviewer even if we have to develop a new protection level to cram it down your throats!" That type of hamfisted, I'm-right-you're-wrong approach will gear people right up for a fight. Fights are bad. Discussions are good. But people don't like to talk to a brick wall.
Everyone (as in, the vast majority of people I ever spoke to, approaching 100%) agreed that Wikipedia editing, especially for newbies, sucked. Everyone agreed that what happened when clicking on a file in Wikipedia was confusing for most readers. These are not issues the Foundation just made up in some ivory tower; there was little dispute that something should be done. So the Foundation did, and switched their solution on, for everyone, because most users are "just" readers, not editors, and see an actual improvement. Neiter VE nor MV was perfect in the beginning; neither is now. They just got better over time. So MV is active for everyone, including IPs, even on German Wikipedia, right now. Because it's beeter for most people, and it works. Why did it need to be completely switch off again?
Many of us were asking for a WYSIWYG editor for some time, because we very much need a way to reach out to prospective editors who are intimidated by wikimarkup or just don't care to learn it. So it wasn't that we were opposed to VE in principle. Good idea, bad execution.
As someone who has worked on alternative Wikitext parsers, and alternative interfaces, rest assured that the execution was quite good for an initial version. As I said before, it is impossible to get this perfect right away. Just like it is impossible (literally, as in "not possible") to reliably get the license for an image in MV on all cases. The community/vocal group needs to show some patience when developers are trying their best to get a giant project up and running smoothy.
Cheers, Magnus
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 7:39 AM, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Magnus, you've missed the point of the visual editor revolt. A couple of people here have tried to explain that to you, politely. And you're persisting with your idée fixe.
There were two parts to the visual editor catastrophe, actually. The product wasn't ready for anyone to use. Not veteran editors. Not newbies. Newbies who used it were less likely to successfully complete an edit. It was broken, and the WMF insisted we had to use it.
The second part of the problem was arrogance. Yes, a few editors were unnecessarily rude about the product and the developers. But then most of the developers and tech staff who dealt with the community arrogantly characterised *anyone* who complained about the product as an ignorant, selfish Ludite - and you're persisting with that characterisation now.
The WMF under Lila has learned the lessons from that, and they have fostered a much healthier relationship between the developers and the community. You clearly haven't learned all you might have.
In fact, reading the arrogant responses from you here and in the
concurrent
thread titled "How to disseminate free knowledge," and from Denny in earlier threads addressing criticism of WikiData, it seems to me there is still a significant arrogance problem that needs addressing, at least
over
at WikiData.
Some people may approach you arrogantly, maybe even insultingly, about an innovation, and I suppose you might be justified in talking down to them
or
ridiculing them (though I advise against it.). But if you can't
distinguish
them from those who approach you with genuine concerns and well-founded criticisms, then no matter how clever you think your technical solutions are, you will soon find you're no more welcome here than those WMF
staffers
who thought insulting well-meaning critics was a good career move.
Denny's contemptuous dismissal of valid criticisms of his project, and
your
contemptuous dismissal of the valid criticisms of the early visual editor and its launch are both very disappointing.
Anthony Cole
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 7:24 AM, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:
The iPhone was a commercial success because it let you do the basic functions easily and intuitively, and looked shiny at the same time. We
do
not charge a price; our "win" comes by people using our product. If we
can
present the product in such a way that more people use it, it is a
success
for us.
I do stand by my example :-)
On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 10:37 PM Michael Peel email@mikepeel.net
wrote:
On 18 Jan 2016, at 22:35, Magnus Manske <
magnusmanske@googlemail.com
wrote:
As one can be overly conservative, one can also be overly
enthusiastic. I
would hope the Foundation by now understands better how to handle
new
software releases. Apple here shows the way: Basic functionality,
but
working smoothly first.
But at a huge cost premium? I'm not sure that's a good example to
make
here. :-/
Thanks, Mike _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
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