Flow - the next Visual Editor debacle

[Vigilant]

Yeah, that's a pretty dumb thing to say. All it would take is someone with a large sockfarm and a rapid script, and they could essentially wipe out the entire encyclopedia due to that bug.

Shhhhh...
I almost have my botnet deployed.

Please tell me you're serious.

Shutting down WP for even a few hours because of a publicly known exploit introduced because of Möller's obsession and obstinancy brought it live would be truly delicious.

There are so many obvious ways to exploit WMF infrastructure. I'd be surprised to find out that they have anybody inside who's done serious software security work. Not as in "I dun red DDoS fur dumys" but rather as in "I have designed and deployed significant, professional grade software used to protect large, distributed, commercial enterprises."

I have experience in the latter.

Beisdes, I prefer en.wp au natural. Less sympathy from the onlookers that way.

[Jim]

it's not critically important because no-one can move Main page ⇒ Topic:Main page. (Please, don't try...) — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 00:21, 23 January 2015

[greyed.out.fields]

it's not critically important because no-one can move Main page ⇒ Topic:Main page. (Please, don't try...) — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 00:21, 23 January 2015

Permission error
You do not have permission to move this page, for the following reason:
You cannot delete or move the main page.

[Jim]

Permission error
You do not have permission to move this page, for the following reason:
You cannot delete or move the main page.

The numbskull is quite likely to have actually tried, too, before posting that "(Please, don't try...)"

If only it had worked...

[HRIP7]

I don't think this, from earlier this month, has been mentioned here before (if it has, sorry for the duplication):

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:LilaTretikov_(WMF)/Archive_6#Request_for_updates

A while ago, Lila, you said that an internal review over Flow would be held at the WMF. Has this been held, and if so, what were the outcomes? BethNaught (talk) 19:36, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

For information: It was promised here. And I asked without any real answer here as well. ♫ Sänger - Talk - superputsch must go 20:03, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Hi Beth -- thank you for the prompt. We just held our first session right before the holidays. We are still working on the plan of action. But I can tell you in interim my thoughts, in no specific order:

Talk pages serve MANY diverse use cases; they have much of the power of a programing language. A single prescriptive/pre-configured tool such as Flow cannot (and probably should not) address them all.

Flow is a communication tool similar to many available on the web and for many sites would be great. It does not today address collaboration and complex wiki-usecases. As such it is not ready for "prime time" for us.

Flow in the current form is not a replacement for the current Talk pages. If I were to draw a venn diagram of Flow vs. Talk vs. Talk Prime (something super-user would seem to want Talk to become), the overlap would be very modest.

It is not clear if Flow could ever be/become a replacement for Talk in its current concept. We are investigating if this paradigm is too fundamentally different, or if we need different tools for different jobs. Flow may be useful as just a communication tool. This is to be validated. The team is doing some prototype testing.

Beginner users do need simpler on-boarding process. We need to solve for this on-ramp experience (both to teach new wikipedians and to no burden experienced ones). But we also need to keep in mind our super-editors that know and understand the powerful Talk system. We need to find a way to not break the experience for the super-editors while building a simpler one for newcomers.

Finally and most importantly we need to further improve how we conceptualize and build complex features like this one. More early validation and understanding our audience is a must.

Sorry this is not a "final" assessment. But I would be curious to hear your reactions. Thanks. LilaTretikov (WMF) (talk) 23:10, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

The response to that was generally positive.

[HRIP7]

It seems to me Lila is doing many things right. The one thing I do have an issue with is the fundraising banners and her e-mail thanking donors for "keeping Wikipedia online and ad-free" – when it's clear that the Wikimedia Foundation wants the money for its programme of staff expansion, rather than the comparatively inexpensive task of keeping Wikipedia online.

I guess there's always a chance she'll use the tens of millions of dollars they took this year more effectively than her predecessors. :/

[Zoloft]

I like some of her recent choices.

We'll see.

[Vigilant]

When we start seeing more turnover of the long term trouble makers from within WMF, I'll start being more optimistic.

[Hex]

That post from Lila is the best thing I've seen from a WMF staff member in a long time.

[Jim]

That post from Lila is the best thing I've seen from a WMF staff member in a long time.

I've said before, I underestimated her, I think. She has good intentions, I'm sure, and in some of her actions, and events since her arrival, she shows the ability to apply them.

There are some notable unaddressed niggles, like throat-pen boy and Mr. Kaldari, but I'm more than prepared to accept that if you're busy digging the Obersturmbannführer out of his deeply established trench and reassigning him to coffee-boy duties, and removing the damaging blight that was the "whisky and steel wool" man, then you have your priorities in good order.

Whether it's just such a mess it's beyond her, or anyone, we'll see..

[DanMurphy]

In essence, she's saying Flow is almost certainly going to be binned. It is not fit for purpose, remotely. How much money/how many man-hours did they spend on this thing again?

Poor Jorm.

[Jim]

Poor Jorm.

The guy was a wasteful, self-serving, arrogant tosser, who had no idea about designing large-scale solutions, or dealing with the user base.
He should never have been in the position he was. That, however, is a criticism of those who allowed him to be there, or put him there and then tolerated/encouraged him.

Lila has a whole, cancerous, cultural morass to clean. Jorm was a good start.
Shifting Herr Moller to "pencil monitor" was no doubt extremely politically difficult, and I give her huge credit for having achieved that.

We'll need another biopsy in a few months to see if the metastasis was halted, and whether the disease is treatable. The excisions were good.

[DanMurphy]

Poor Jorm.

The guy was a wasteful, self-serving, arrogant tosser, who had no idea about designing large-scale solutions, or dealing with the user base.
He should never have been in the position he was. That, however, is a criticism of those who allowed him to be there, or put him there and then tolerated/encouraged him.

Lila has a whole, cancerous, cultural morass to clean. Jorm was a good start.
Shifting Herr Moller to "pencil monitor" was no doubt extremely politically difficult, and I give her huge credit for having achieved that.

We'll need another biopsy in a few months to see if the metastasis was halted. The excisions were good.

Yes.

If "community input" equates to "absolutely no way this is unacceptable no discussion" then I don't consider that "community input" i consider that "trollish obstruction." - Wikimedia Foundation developer Brandon Harris.

Be it on Sue Gardner's head.

[Jim]

Be it on Sue Gardner's head.

I'd say so, yeah:

That, however, is a criticism of those who allowed him to be there, or put him there and then tolerated/encouraged him.

[Randy from Boise]

In essence, she's saying Flow is almost certainly going to be binned. It is not fit for purpose, remotely. How much money/how many man-hours did they spend on this thing again?

Poor Jorm.

It has been apparent from the start that Flow was nothing more than a warmed over version of the failed discussion mechanism Liquid Threads. One of the recent triumphs of the Flow teams has been creation of some sort of conversion filter from LQT --> Flow, I understand.

The need to be filled is a simple messaging system for newcomers to opine about articles. One potential solution might be a fourth tab: ARTICLE /// TALK /// HISTORY /// COMMENT with the Talk page being Wikitext and the Comment page being in Flow.

I am relieved that The Boss is asking the question of Flow "Does this work?" rather than rushing pell mell towards an implementation deadline. The terrifying thing about Flow is that it would have hatted all previous Wikitext on talk pages and started a new Flow section — and that it would be impossible to go back to the former state without hatting off the subsequent Flow material. It would have been a catastrophe on a grand scale. Not to say that mistake still won't be made, but there is a decent chance of course correction now...

RfB

[Jim]

It would have been a catastrophe on a grand scale

It would maybe have killed the site.
I don't exaggerate here.

This is why I give Lila's perception and actions credit. She dealt with a huge, imminent threat by canning this.

[Randy from Boise]

It would have been a catastrophe on a grand scale

It would maybe have killed the site.
I don't exaggerate here.

This is why I give Lila's perception and actions credit. She dealt with a huge, imminent threat by canning this.

Moving to Liquid Threads killed Wil Sinclair's site, and that's a fact.

I think in the Wikipedia case it would have been 24 hours of mad chaos and a fast revert.

RfB

[Jim]

It would have been a catastrophe on a grand scale

It would maybe have killed the site.
I don't exaggerate here.

This is why I give Lila's perception and actions credit. She dealt with a huge, imminent threat by canning this.

Moving to Liquid Threads killed Wil Sinclair's site, and that's a fact.

I think in the Wikipedia case it would have been 24 hours of mad chaos and a fast revert.

RfB

That's a pretty astute analysis, Tim.

I think the wikipedia fallout would have been bigger, maybe even terminal, but they averted that for now.

[Vigilant]

It would have been a catastrophe on a grand scale

It would maybe have killed the site.
I don't exaggerate here.

This is why I give Lila's perception and actions credit. She dealt with a huge, imminent threat by canning this.

Moving to Liquid Threads killed Wil Sinclair's site, and that's a fact.

I think in the Wikipedia case it would have been 24 hours of mad chaos and a fast revert.

RfB

Well, that and allowing anyone to move pages anandmerge articles...

[Jim]

Well, that and allowing anyone to move pages and merge articles...

Well, yeah, but this is Wlllmm, the saviour of our souls, we're talking about here. Nobody with any kind of clue would do something as obviously doomed as that.
Surely?

[Poetlister]

Well, that and allowing anyone to move pages and merge articles...

Well, yeah, but this is Wlllmm, the saviour of our souls, we're talking about here. Nobody with any kind of clue would do something as obviously doomed as that.
Surely?

Somebody there must have some kind of clue, or Wikipedia would have fallen over years ago. Somehow they managed to scale up the software to something that must be many times bigger than they ever envisaged. Somehow they've managed to make all sorts of modifications, comparatively trivial admittedly, that do work, such as checkuser, revdel and stopping people deleting the main page.

[Kelly Martin]

Somebody there must have some kind of clue, or Wikipedia would have fallen over years ago. Somehow they managed to scale up the software to something that must be many times bigger than they ever envisaged. Somehow they've managed to make all sorts of modifications, comparatively trivial admittedly, that do work, such as checkuser, revdel and stopping people deleting the main page.

The scaling is mostly accomplished by the application of Squid, which any vaguely intelligent sysadmin can do, and which requires essentially no programming at all. Most of the necessary modifications were done by Brion Vibber or Tim Starling.

[Randy from Boise]

Somebody there must have some kind of clue, or Wikipedia would have fallen over years ago. Somehow they managed to scale up the software to something that must be many times bigger than they ever envisaged. Somehow they've managed to make all sorts of modifications, comparatively trivial admittedly, that do work, such as checkuser, revdel and stopping people deleting the main page.

The scaling is mostly accomplished by the application of Squid, which any vaguely intelligent sysadmin can do, and which requires essentially no programming at all. Most of the necessary modifications were done by Brion Vibber or Tim Starling.

Vague intelligence comes at a premium at WMF.

RfB

[lilburne]

It would have been a catastrophe on a grand scale

It would maybe have killed the site.
I don't exaggerate here.

Oh I'm sure you do exaggerate greatly. They should at least give it a six months trial.

[Randy from Boise]

It would have been a catastrophe on a grand scale

It would maybe have killed the site.
I don't exaggerate here.

Oh I'm sure you do exaggerate greatly. They should at least give it a six months trial.

...................said the spider to the fly.

RfB

[Jim]

...................said the spider to the fly.

specist.

[Vigilant]

...................said the spider to the fly.

specist.

Incestist!

Arachnophobe!

Let SpiderGate come forth upon the land...

[Kelly Martin]

Let SpiderGate come forth upon the land...

But Sue Gardner has moved on! It's gotta be UnicornGate now.

[Vigilant]

Let SpiderGate come forth upon the land...

But Sue Gardner has moved on! It's gotta be UnicornGate now.

:meow:

[Jim]

Let SpiderGate come forth upon the land...

Whoa tiger. Easy. With great power comes great responsibility.


Spidergate, Spidergate, does whatever a Spidergate does...

[Hex]

Just Fancy That

"[Flow has been used] for a while on WMF's own office-wiki. ... [I've heard] stories that suggest some groups of staff have pretty much abandoned talk pages on office-wiki and are now reverting to emails instead..."

Anne Clin, post to Wikitech-l, 19 March 2013

"Kind of telling wouldn’t you say, that so much of the discussion re: LQT takes place on the ‘mailing list’ rather than on the wiki, so that rather than being organized around a central page on LQT they’re lost in inboxes all over the world. The proliferation of such lists coincides with the implementation of LQT."

Brent Simpson, comment on WikiEducator, 25 September 2008

[Zoloft]

So, Flow = Death of Talk Pages = Back to Offline communications

[HRIP7]

https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/w ... 77270.html

We'll be holding an Office hour for Flow on IRC, this Monday at 19:30
UTC / 12:30 PST.[1] It will take place in #wikimedia-office on
Freenode IRC.

You can find information on how to get online, including a link to a
webchat option if you don't have an IRC client, on the meta office
hours page.[2]

The intended focus is for questions about the LQT -> Flow conversion
on MediaWiki.org, as discussed in the related wikitech-l thread and
onwiki.[3][4]

Everyone is welcome for discussions and question answering. Logs will
be posted on the meta office hour page afterwards.

[Vigilant]

https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/w ... 77270.html

We'll be holding an Office hour for Flow on IRC, this Monday at 19:30
UTC / 12:30 PST.[1] It will take place in #wikimedia-office on
Freenode IRC.

You can find information on how to get online, including a link to a
webchat option if you don't have an IRC client, on the meta office
hours page.[2]

The intended focus is for questions about the LQT -> Flow conversion
on MediaWiki.org, as discussed in the related wikitech-l thread and
onwiki.[3][4]

Everyone is welcome for discussions and question answering. Logs will
be posted on the meta office hour page afterwards.

If Flow's so awesome, why not hold the Office Hour on a Flow enabled page?

[EricBarbour]

If Flow's so awesome, why not hold the Office Hour on a Flow enabled page?

Because their ADHD fans prefer to sit on IRC, frantically typing private messages to their buds.
Flow doesn't give the "instant feedback" addictiveness of IRC.

[Vigilant]

If Flow's so awesome, why not hold the Office Hour on a Flow enabled page?

Because their ADHD fans prefer to sit on IRC, frantically typing private messages to their buds.
Flow doesn't give the "instant feedback" addictiveness of IRC.

Further, the indentation styling of Flow makes it virtually impossible to tell who typed which response to what post.
It's a bigger POS than VE was at the beginning.
Utterly unsuited for purpose.

[Hex]

Have they learned nothing at all?

[DanMurphy]

Have they learned nothing at all?

Priceless.

Alsee, that's a good point -- we should have asked before saying we were going to change this page. I'm sorry about that.

The reason why we want to enable Flow on this page is that there have been a lot of discussions here -- like "New indentation & threading model" and "Talk: Phineas Gage" above, where it sounds like people are guessing about how Flow works, especially when it comes to recent updates.

Flow is currently in active development -- we're adding important features, and fixing a lot of old problems. So if we're talking to people who haven't looked at a Flow page since six months ago, it's hard to catch people up to the way that it works now. Suggesting that people go and try out a separate test page isn't the same thing as actually using the current feature.

There are some important use cases that Flow doesn't handle yet, like multi-editable collaboration space, and most workflows. But this page is just used for discussions between groups of people, and Flow handles that use case pretty well. I think the easiest and most efficient way to show everyone the current state of development is to actually use it on the page where people are interested in talking about Flow.

What do you think? DannyH (WMF) (talk) 19:03, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

[Vigilant]

Using Flow on this page is a great way to ensure that people who refuse to use Flow pages (such as myself) will be excluded. I already saw some notification about a Flow survey thingie on MediaWiki and didn't participate in that either for the same reason. As per the above, we don't want this here and we have enough pages to test it on. ekips39❦talk 23:30, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

[Randy from Boise]

Have they learned nothing at all?

Bring it on, you fucking incompetent dumbasses!!!

Don't forget to queue up for your pinkslips June 1. Cardboard boxes are available at the front desk in the lobby.

RfB

[Vigilant]

Have they learned nothing at all?

Bring it on, you fucking incompetent dumbasses!!!

Don't forget to queue up for your pinkslips June 1. Cardboard boxes are available at the front desk in the lobby.

RfB

Apparently, Tim has become my anger interpreter...

[Zoloft]

Have they learned nothing at all?

Bring it on, you fucking incompetent dumbasses!!!

Don't forget to queue up for your pinkslips June 1. Cardboard boxes are available at the front desk in the lobby.

RfB

Apparently, Tim has become my anger interpreter...

Your enthusiasm is infectious.

[mac]

Have they learned nothing at all?

They should enable Flow on AN/I and the other drama boards. This would enable the content creators to go about their business, while the noticeboards (and its inhabitants) would wither away.

[DanMurphy]

Flow is still in use (if one could call it that) at two moribund Wikiprojects: Hampshire and Breakfast.

[EricBarbour]

Using Flow on this page is a great way to ensure that people who refuse to use Flow pages (such as myself) will be excluded. I already saw some notification about a Flow survey thingie on MediaWiki and didn't participate in that either for the same reason. As per the above, we don't want this here and we have enough pages to test it on. ekips39❦talk 23:30, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Hi Danny and Quiddity, I'd like to add my name to those asking that you not activate Flow on this page. When I last checked Flow I found it harder to follow a conversation, but I would like to be able to follow this one. Also, my understanding of Lila's input about this is that nothing would be rushed or forced on the community. Now suddenly to be told that discussion about the very medium editors object to will be held in that medium doesn't seem consistent with that assurance. Sarah (SV) (talk) 00:58, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Thirded. I've been testing it out, and I couldn't figure out an indent like the one used here for a while. Replying individually to the bottom post just added another "main" post, which was confusing. I'd prefer discussing Flow without having to spend time figuring out exactly how to format what I want to say. Origamiteⓣⓒ 01:31, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
That's quite a rich statement considering how much thought we are forced to put into formatting wikitalk. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 02:12, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Colons and asterisks don't take much thought. Origamite's issues with Flow sound more complicated than anything one would encounter on talk pages. The raw code we use now makes it easier to see exactly what one is doing. ekips39❦talk 05:29, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Also, while for wikitalk we have to learn a very little code, it's stupid to force a new system on us which we have to relearn but which will inhibit functionality. BethNaught (talk) 07:23, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

I just looked at Wikipedia talk:Flow/Developer test page. I'm not sure whether it's been six months since I last checked in here, but that page looked basically the same as I recall it did the last time I checked. So, what's new vs. six months ago. What new features and "use cases" should we be testing out? Wbm1058 (talk) 22:40, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Per Sarah, it would be perverse to force discussion of something to which many are opposed into using that very thing. Bizarre, even. To do so without consensus flies in the face of the "new way forward" which Lila has said she is spearheading, central to which is community consultation and consensus. Not encouraging at all. Sad face. Begoon talk 23:31, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

No. People aren't interested in being alpha testers for a feature they don't particularly want. When you think it ready for global deployment let us know and we will destruction test it. Until then leave it on the test wikis where those who want to know its current state can find it.©Geni (talk) 18:35, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

[SB_Johnny]

I hope Lila knows who decided to be this stupid, so that they can move on to "other opportunities", "neglected passions", and so on.

[Vigilant]

Have they learned nothing at all?

They should enable Flow on AN/I and the other drama boards. This would enable the content creators to go about their business, while the noticeboards (and its inhabitants) would wither away.

I had this exact epiphany, including JimboTalk, but thought it was too mean to write.

[Notvelty]

Have they learned nothing at all?

Bring it on, you fucking incompetent dumbasses!!!

Don't forget to queue up for your pinkslips June 1. Cardboard boxes are available at the front desk in the lobby.

RfB

Apparently, Tim has become my anger interpreter...

Your enthusiasm is infectious.

Vig has a great big enthusiasm.

[Vigilant]

Have they learned nothing at all?

Bring it on, you fucking incompetent dumbasses!!!

Don't forget to queue up for your pinkslips June 1. Cardboard boxes are available at the front desk in the lobby.

RfB

Apparently, Tim has become my anger interpreter...

Your enthusiasm is infectious.

Vig has a great big enthusiasm.

[Konveyor Belt]

Forgive me for bumping an old thread, but I found this Phabricator discussion about being able to convert Flow pages back to wikitext very interesting: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T90075

And particularly this comment by Erik Bernharson, a WMF employee and Flow team member:

We are indecisive if we are going to provide this feature to users, if we really want it we can talk about and figure best ways forward.

So it seems they are sticking with Flow with tooth and nail, and when it fails (and it will) the Flow pages will be left to gather dust and we'll go back to wikitext, with weeks or months of discussion left out of the archive and abandoned on some dusty WMF server.