[Wikimediaindia-l] Webfonts deployment on Indic Wikiprojects

Wed Dec 14 10:49:10 UTC 2011

The order which was mentioned by Srikanth L, is very useful for the smaller
Wiki projects.

Because, many End users using WP, Wiktionary very most. (I understand the
power of Wiktionary today. My math professor said, *Use Tamil Wiktionary to
get equivalent Tamil word for an English word!*)* *I wondered. :)

As, he's a professor in college he may not know much about these
communities behind those projects. Because, the end user only likes OUTPUT
just output data. He will not feel about the *Red link* or anything else.

So, from that POV, these kind of extensions should be checked in all
platforms.

Thanks Bala for checking *ALL (currently web fonts installed languages) *Indic
languages & reporting bugs.

Thanks.
*$U®¥∩*
http://goo.gl/RoMyo.com <http://FirefoxSurya.blogspot.com>
http://about.me/suryaceg

On 14 December 2011 11:18, Pradeep Mohandas <pradeep.mohandas at gmail.com>wrote:

> hi,
>
> Curious: Is anybody testing this for mobile web? Shiju's report last
> week suggested an increase in traffic via mobile web, I think.
> I have started trying to read ml.wiki on my cell pointing my phone
> browser at ml.m.wikipedia.org and all I get are boxes right now.  I'm
> using Opera Mini browser on a Nokia E63.
> Pradeep
> Handheld
>
> On 14/12/2011, Bala Jeyaraman <sodabottle at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Have found a few more bugs in testing (other than the ones mentioned in
> the
> > original mail)
> >
> > 1) Nepali - https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=33039
> > 2) Sanskrit, Hindi and Nepali -
> > https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=33038
> > 3) Odiya - https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=33034
> > 4) Sanskrit, Hindi -
> https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=33040
> >
> > And they keep coming. At this rate me and srikanth should be paid per bug
> > by the WMF.  I am yet to touch Assamese, Marathi, Punjabi, Bengali or
> > Firefox 4.x, 6.x and IE 6.0, 8.0 and have only began Chrome testing.  I
> am
> > totally wiped for the day and quitting testing. Will try to cover the
> other
> > cases tomorrow.
> >
> > Two thoughts at the end of a long day:
> > i)  To i18n team: Instead of launching a such a buggy code, that too as a
> > compulsory and default option for all users, why not listen to feedback
> and
> > do proper testing?. Testing is always better than firefighting. Its never
> > too late, roll back this "soft launch", form language teams, test this
> for
> > a few weeks thoroughly and then do project by project launches.
> >
> > ii)To Hindi, Telugu, Kannada, Sanskrit, Oriya, Marathi, Assamese and
> > Bengali folks on this list. Spread the word and test, test, test. File
> bug
> > reports. This needs thorough testing in all OSes/browsers/connections by
> > people who know the language. Learn from this experience and dont accept
> > any untested products. Mayur has reported in one of the bugs that hi wiki
> > users are reporting strange issues and has suggested making webfonts
> > optional [1] A few weeks back i tried to warn the communities not to
> accept
> > webfonts without proper testing. [2] What i feared has come to pass.
> > Probably should have posted in all village pumps.
> >
> > ==Links==
> > [1]https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=33024
> > [2]
> >
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2011-November/005153.html
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Dec 13, 2011 at 9:44 PM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan <
> > parakara.ghoda at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Also forgot to tell you. My college uses ONLY systems with Windows XP
> >> and Internet Explorer 6. Most students are from a Tamil background,
> >> and they read Tamil websites, Wikipedia very often.
> >>
> >> On 12/13/11, Srikanth Lakshmanan <srik.lak at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> > Hi all,
> >> >
> >> > Pardon for a long mail, just unavoidable.
> >> >
> >> > We have seen the WebFonts roll out[0] last night to most Indic wikis
> >> except
> >> > Malayalam and Tamil. We in Tamil Community felt WebFonts extension is
> >> just
> >> > not ready for us. We would like to share on why we in Tamil community
> >> didnt
> >> > chose webfonts and also what could work better in future for Indic
> >> > communities during technology adoption.
> >> >
> >> > 1. *Unavailability of "Quality Free fonts"* :-
> >> > During the development, our request for not setting the default font
> as
> >> > a
> >> > lower quality font was rejected citing "it will defeat the purpose of
> >> > extension".[1] The available fonts had issues and deploying the
> >> > extension
> >> > with those low quality fonts to everyone would not only defeat the
> >> purpose
> >> > of extension, but also gives Tamil Wikipedia a bad image when people
> >> > just
> >> > cant read the fonts even though they had better fonts in system. (Just
> >> like
> >> > how i18n team says people who see boxes will just simply close the
> >> window,
> >> > we say giving these poor fonts will also lead to same thing and not
> help
> >> > the cause, instead will also hurt those who have better fonts.).
> >> >
> >> > 2. *Quality of User Experience* :-
> >> > We are a smaller wiki, we have a smaller reader base, but still we are
> >> > ranked 7th most visited website in Tamil according to alexa[2]. Just
> >> > like
> >> > how no-nonsense / no-mediocrity is tolerated in any code that enters
> WMF
> >> > cluster, any change which will affect the site's look and feel, user
> >> > experience will have to be of highest standards and must be accepted
> by
> >> > community. WebFonts were just not ready to enter Wikipedia, since it
> >> > changes the UX for all the readers to help a potentially lower number
> of
> >> > users who dont have Tamil fonts than the current existing reader base.
> >> >
> >> > *What we feel was wrong in WebFonts deployment*
> >> >
> >> > We have also been seeing the wikis where they have been rolled out and
> >> > reporting issues. We ourselves are reporting issues inspite of not
> >> > taking
> >> > WebFonts, with the hope software just gets better and some day we can
> >> > deploy them. Dont get us wrong, we are not against technology, we just
> >> need
> >> > it in better form and are not in any urgency. (After all we at Ta wiki
> >> > initiated an RFC and asked Webfonts even before the announcement was
> >> made).
> >> > We would also like to mention some points which we feel i18n team
> could
> >> > have done better for a smoother launch.
> >> >
> >> > 1. *Font Testing* :-
> >> > The point of language support team is that the people who are aware of
> >> > language give feedback to make any software better supported for the
> >> > language. We are not sure if Font-Testing was ever done at all for
> those
> >> > languages where the WebFonts were deployed. The hinting issue which
> was
> >> > a
> >> > concern and made us raise against deployment in Tamil is also present
> in
> >> > Hindi,Sanskrit,Telugu(atleast till we saw) and gave the same worst
> >> > readability. The i18n team did font assessment[3], testing only 1 word
> >> > to
> >> > test the font. Can any font be tested with just rendering of 4
> >> characters /
> >> > 1 word? For Tamil,we did a test in little more comprehensive way(We
> >> > would
> >> > not say its complete)[4]. This should have been a *must* to see
> >> rendering /
> >> > font issues with chosen default font especially since the fonts are
> >> > being
> >> > set default to every single user to the site. Sadly community was
> >> involved
> >> > the least, a note was posted in Village pumps and we dont think
> >> > community
> >> > involved itself in any testing and poor quality was eventually pushed
> >> > without proper testing.
> >> >
> >> > 2. *Real world testing* :-
> >> > Though cross browser testing was done, there was a severe lack of real
> >> > world testing and as a result we are seeing a host of issues being
> >> > discovered post launch. Average PC in India might have 1 GB RAM,
> Firefox
> >> 3
> >> > / 4, worse IE 5.5 / IE6 on 100 Kbps semi-broadband connection. We
> cannot
> >> > tell them move to latest or ignore them. More care should have been
> >> > taken
> >> > especially since the webfonts is bound to set a default font.
> >> >
> >> > With only a few hours of testing serious issues have been found -  in
> IE
> >> 8
> >> > where webfonts might be rolled back [5], IE 7.0 (where webfonts dont
> >> work)
> >> > [6] ,  ubuntu + Firefox (fixed now) [7] and Win+Firefox 5.0,  [8]. We
> >> > are
> >> > still testing for other browsers and usecases and dont know how many
> >> issues
> >> > we will discover. In short - This code is not ready to go live,
> >> especially
> >> > when it is being made default compulsorily for everyone. There are
> >> serious
> >> > performance issues for typical Indian internet connections as well.[9]
> >> >
> >> > 3. *Communication and Community Engagement* :-
> >> > Most of the above things could have solved earlier if there was more
> >> > communication and community engagement. We asked for more information,
> >> > engagement on this very list. There was no reply to the mail on
> >> increasing
> >> > community engagement for i18n projects[10]. Most communities know
> >> WebFonts
> >> > is coming on Dec 12, didnt know what was coming, any further details.
> >> > Worse, Even Indic Consultant was not having clear information. Why
> this
> >> > lack of transparency? Community is more than willing to help, if only
> >> they
> >> > are informed. Even though we did not take up WebFonts, we have spent
> >> > time
> >> > to help making it better.
> >> >
> >> >  And the end users in the wikis dont know where to report and follow
> up
> >> > issues. (Not everyone is aware of and familiar with the Bugzilla
> >> process).
> >> > The request we raised to have a visible bug reporting link has not
> been
> >> > acted upon [11]. There might be a lot of issues going unreported,
> >> > because
> >> > people dont know whom to report to. When a change of this scale is
> being
> >> > done, Community admins must be advised to run Sitenotice campaigns to
> >> > inform the users about the change with some solid newbie oriented
> >> > documentation. Infact this must be done for RFC itself, so as to make
> an
> >> > informed decision. We did the same for RFC in Tamil[12].
> >> >
> >> > *Proposal for Future i18n / any special deployments to Indic
> >> wikiprojects*:-
> >> >
> >> > The WebFonts deployment is a classic example of making deployment
> >> > without
> >> > enough community engagement. Can this done in any of English / German
> /
> >> > Russian wikipedia which have a strong community? The fact that Tamil /
> >> > Malayalam resisted was because the community had concerns over the
> >> > solution. Till an hour before deployment yesterday, we did not know if
> >> > Ta
> >> > wiki projects will get webfonts despite our objections.  We had been
> >> > pursuing Siebrand and Gerard across forums - facebook, twitter, meta
> >> > talk
> >> > pages, village pumps, gmail chat etc looking for answers. But till the
> >> > deployment happened, we had no clue what we would be getting. This
> >> > method
> >> > of deploying in silence *must* stop ASAP. Any deployment to any Indic
> >> wiki
> >> > must go through the community (language support teams) informed of the
> >> > change with Indic Consultant kept in loop. We suggest Shiju Alex to
> work
> >> on
> >> > a policy and put it in place regarding this. If there is problem
> >> > identifying community members to help, we are sure Shiju will help
> >> > connecting.
> >> >
> >> > Irrespective of that happening Tamil Wiki Projects will follow this
> >> process.
> >> >
> >> > 1. Test any deployment on translatewiki
> >> > 2. File Bugs and verify in translatewiki till it reaches acceptable
> >> level.
> >> > 3. Language support team member will make a RFC page explaining the
> >> merits
> >> > / demerits of the technology in simple terms with use of screenshots /
> >> > external links
> >> > 4. Reverify / Ask for deployment in largely-inactive Wikiprojects like
> >> > WikiQuote / WikiBooks *post community concensus*
> >> > 5. Test again / File Bugs
> >> > 6. Reverify / Ask for deployment Wikiprojects next in line in terms of
> >> > activity ( Wiktionary / Wikinews/ Wikisource)
> >> > 7. Test again / File Bugs
> >> > 8. Only after ironing out all issues, any deployment will be allowed
> in
> >> > Tamil Wikipedia.
> >> >
> >> > We had burnt our fingers during Narayam deployment already once and
> >> > community was so resistive of Narayam itself and was asking to go back
> >> > to
> >> > older javascript solution. After that we followed the above process
> for
> >> > bringing back Narayam on all Tamil Wikiprojects.
> >> >
> >> > We suggest the other communities adopt something similar. We sincerely
> >> hope
> >> > that the community engagement is improved, not just before deployment,
> >> even
> >> > from start of development.
> >> >
> >> > [0] http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/12/12/going-live-december-12-2011/
> >> > [1] https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/30506
> >> > [2] http://www.alexa.com/topsites/category/Top/World/Tamil
> >> > [3] http://translatewiki.net/wiki/WebFonts_assessment
> >> > [4] http://translatewiki.net/wiki/User:Sodabottle/test1
> >> > [5] https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/32775
> >> > [6] https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/33024
> >> > [7] https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/33025
> >> > [8] https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/33018
> >> > [9] https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/33027
> >> > [10]
> >> >
> >>
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2011-November/005153.html
> >> > [11] https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/32942
> >> > [12] http://tawp.in/r/2r1f
> >> >
> >> > --
> >> > Regards
> >> > Bala Jeyaraman & Srikanth.L
> >> >
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Regards,
> >> Srikanth Ramakrishnan.
> >> Wikipedia Coimbatore Meetup on December 10th.
> >> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetup/Coimbatore
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
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> >>
> >
>
>
> --
> Pradeep Mohandas
> How Pradeep uses email - http://goo.gl/6v1I9
>
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