The
problem was never IPv6. The problem was always about the unspoken
expectation that everyone else would just drop everything else they have
going on to patch up all the stuff that got broken as a result of this
sudden change. I get that this was an exciting step for the engineers
who
got it done, and I tip my hat to all of them for
pulling it off; from
that
sense it's been a successful implementation.
I also get that at least
30%
of WMF users on hundreds of projects -that's
roughly how many use one or
more gadgets, scripts or tools that didn't work after this switch - have
now had their "editing experience" negatively affected, and that almost
all
of it could have been avoided with a month or two
of notice so that
patches
could be written and resources could be put into
place in advance. One
has
to hope this was a knowledge gap and that
Engineering did not actually
know
the extent to which it would impact the projects
and the end-users.
Are the breakages on the site really that massive? We've been getting
little to no reports of breakages.
From what I understand, most of these breakages are in tools and scripts
developed and operated by volunteer developers, not WMF developers. The
big one is Huggle, which on enwp is used by a large majority of admins and
recent changes patrollers. There are additional notes on the enwp village
pump (technical) that appear to be related, although I do not have the
expertise to assess this. I have been told that there are parallel issues
on some of the other large projects, although I don't have direct
knowledge.