On 11-04-2014 04:35, Steven Walling wrote:
How are these specific, replicable bugs? DJ is saying things the current solution is "not working" and we "cannot do better" but there is no evidence about why this is the case for such a large number of users that it requires a revert back to plain sans-serif.
People are talking in generalities and about problems related to areas like non-Latin script support, but not referring to bugs filed and which would be fixed by the suggested patch. Brian's recent comment here is an example of what we are asking to hear, though I don't think that requires a full revert.
[1] shows half the world complaining about the typography refresh.
I'm sorry, but this is beginning to be like VE all over again; all I see now coming out of the foundation is a big, unpenetrable progaganda machine with a broken record: "There is no problem! This is a good change! There are no bugs!"
Steven, it has been sufficiently demonstrated that the single, global font stack is technically flawed and must be reverted. With all due respect to the design team, they are *not* engineers and may not be aware of the problems as they have emerged.
I will explain one more time: free/non-free fonts are not the issue, MediaWiki is now forcing a Latin font stack that does not work in non-Latin installations. This does not only affect current Mediawiki wikis but will also affect new non-Latin MW 1.23 installations; they all had/have to fix this one way or another, usually by resetting the font stack.
We must focus on a system that delivers a font stack on a per-language basis. But that cannot happen as long as the global font stack is in place.
Unless you can raise issues that cause actual functional problems that outweigh the benefits of the new body font stack, I don't think merging that patch is required to improve things and is worth the churn in user experience for millions of readers.
*ANY* functional problem outweighs the purported benefits. That is because actual functional problems should never be weighed; they should be fixed on sight.
Please Steven, and the foundation in general, PLEASE step of the propaganda wagon and do the responsible thing; remove the font stacks so that we can focus on a *real* solution that actually *does* benefit the entire world.
I am really, really affraid that refusing to +2 this patch is going to affect future attempts to fix this on a per-language basis.
Regards,