Media Viewer - A new hope

We examine the less than successful stories of the Wikimedia Foundation to create and use technology. The poster boy for this forum is Visual Editor.
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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by Vigilant » Wed Jul 16, 2014 4:06 pm

The case has reached a definite threshold to open. We'll be making the case pages soon. --Lord Roem ~ (talk) 15:29, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
Well, if they're pulling in this clown to clerk, then at least we know they've already got the verdict written.
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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by Vigilant » Wed Jul 16, 2014 4:19 pm

Now on der Jimbo's page
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?tit ... _Community
Software and the WMF vs. the English Wikipedia Community

There is a Request for Arbitration currently being considered: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... Viewer_RfC. The issue illustrates a problem that needs to be addressed, which is tension between the English Wikipedia community and the WMF staff. On the one hand, it is true that the Wikimedia Foundation owns the servers and so sometimes has to assert power. On the other hand, Wikipedia has operated, with a few exceptions, on the model of community consensus. The issue in point has to do with the Media Viewer software. An RFC was concluded as to whether Media Viewer should be enabled by default or disabled by default. The RFC concluded (consensus of the English Wikpedia community) that it should be disabled by default. It appears that a "regular" en.wiki administrator tried to set those options, and a conflict with a WMF staff member arose, in which the "regular" administrator was severely cautioned, and was threatened with desysopping for interfering with the Office. The issue about Media Viewer is very similar to Visual Editor. WMF staff and its developers attempted to push poorly tested software into production, and the community pushed back. The basic problem, as I see it, is that WMF staff is resistant to input by the community. There are a few situations, such as legal response to copyright violations, in which the principle of Office Action really must trump the community. The rollout of software is not one of the situations in which WMF must act unilaterally. Because of the complex and subtle relationship between the WMF as legal owner of the servers and the community as the purpose of the servers, Arbitration is not the ideal way to resolve this conflict. A cultural change would be preferred. We have already had one disaster narrowly averted with respect to Visual Editor. It does not appear that the WMF staff and its developers have learned that they should listen to the community about software. You, Jimbo Wales, are a board member of the WMF and its founder, and are the representative to the community of the WMF. Can you, Jimbo Wales, reason with WMF staff and remind them that, except in special cases such as Office legal action, their function is to serve the community (not to dictate to the community)? Robert McClenon (talk) 03:27, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
Robert is a bit dainty there, but Tim hammers the points home.
I think this is a perfect case for ArbCom, personally. I only hope they are up to the task. There is an enormous issue here: does WMF engineering, with a budget of tens of millions of dollars and a professional interest in their expensive initiatives "succeeding," quote-unquote, have an ownership right to shove broken or unwanted software down the volunteer community's throats? This is not so important with MediaViewer, which works fine, but is a huge issue with badly broken toys like VisualEditor or the massive disruption that will be inevitable if Flow is allowed to be imposed. This is the time to figure this question out... Carrite (talk) 15:09, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
I think there's more to in than that.
"WMF action" is a made up term.
Where is the new ED in all this?
WP:CONEXCEPT has never been used for this. Huge expansion of power.
RfC is a dead letter now?
Who asked for a new media viewer?
What is the point/reason for needing new viewing software?
What is it supposed to strategically accomplish? Editor retention?
Is WMF engineering searching about for ways to spend money?
Have they showed that they can deliver functioning software that people like?
Why does the WMF engineering team lie about their surveys?
Do they even know they're lying?


Until the WMF can articulate WHY they build these tools, I can only assume that they are actively looking for ways to spend money with no thought to overall strategy.

Until they can figure out how to deliver robust commercial grade software, from customer needs to regression testing to sustaining management, they will be haunted by this type of resistance.

Until they have people who understand these two things, they will forever build the wrong thing in a shitty way.
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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by Vigilant » Wed Jul 16, 2014 4:23 pm

Nice
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?tit ... anently.3F

The WMF has driven editors to the point where they are exchanging and installing small scripts to get way from their tools.

:hats-off:
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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by Hex » Wed Jul 16, 2014 6:56 pm

Vigilant wrote: WP:CONEXCEPT has never been used for this. Huge expansion of power.
Hands up who'd even heard of CONEXCEPT before this? I certainly hadn't.
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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by mac » Wed Jul 16, 2014 7:42 pm

Hex wrote:
Vigilant wrote: WP:CONEXCEPT has never been used for this. Huge expansion of power.
Hands up who'd even heard of CONEXCEPT before this? I certainly hadn't.
:iknowiknow:

I noticed it when scrolling through WP:CONSENSUS, where CONEXCEPT redirects as a deeplink, btw. CONSENSUS includes a link to a Meta page that hasn't been substantially updated in years: link

This page includes this statement about Liquid Threads, calling it one of "[t]he most controversial feature requests":
The extension was written thoughtfully, even though it was not perfect, and is in use on a few wikis including MediaWiki.org. As of 2013 it is arguably capable of serving some of the smaller wikis (not sv.source, which stopped using it after experiencing too many critical bugs). Yet sv:wp, pt:wp, and zh:wp had their requests to use it rejected, partly out of a fear that it would be hard to switch over and harder still to switch back if it did not become a long-term solution. There has also been a back-burner project for years to implement a better talk-page solution; the idea that one might be forthcoming helped push back on these community requests. However, Flow is not designated to be complete for another 2 years, and even then it may decline to handle user talk pages.
(emphasis added)

But CONEXCEPT seems to have been invoked less than fifty times (in the Wikipedia namespace anyway): link

From that page, it looks like it was invoked in the VisualEditurd RFC: Wikipedia:VisualEditor/RFC (T-H-L)

and whatever this is:
Wikipedia:Petition to the WMF on handling of interface changes (T-H-L)

among others. Even though the redirect has existed since 2007, it's unlikely many Wikipedians knew about it... until now.

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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by Anroth » Wed Jul 16, 2014 7:46 pm

Hex wrote:
Vigilant wrote: WP:CONEXCEPT has never been used for this. Huge expansion of power.
Hands up who'd even heard of CONEXCEPT before this? I certainly hadn't.
I have. Its part of the consensus page but the only likely time its going to be referred to is when an editor is editing against consensus, or someone (usually an admin) closes a discussion against consensus. (At which point you break out CONEXCEPT and say 'Aha! Not one of these is it!) Unless you do either of those, you are unlikely to have heard of it.

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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by Hex » Wed Jul 16, 2014 9:01 pm

mac wrote:CONSENSUS includes a link to a Meta page that hasn't been substantially updated in years: link
Nice find. Looking at the history, that page was created by MZMcBride, and was called "Ignoring community consensus" :D until Nemo bis moved it two days later :crying:
mac wrote: But CONEXCEPT seems to have been invoked less than fifty times (in the Wikipedia namespace anyway): link ...

Even though the redirect has existed since 2007, it's unlikely many Wikipedians knew about it... until now.
Yeah. That's nothing.

When the shortcut was created, the page had a link to "Foundation Issues" (later renamed to "Founding principles") was removed. Let's compare the 2007 and present versions of that. Look at the changes in wording that I've highlighted:
[url=https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Founding_principles&oldid=630516]meta:Founding principles[/url] as of 30 July 2007 wrote: The Wikimedia projects as a community have certain foundation issues that are essentially beyond debate. People who strongly disagree with them sometimes end up leaving the project. These issues include:

1. NPOV as the guiding editorial principle
2. Ability of anyone to edit articles without registering
3. The "wiki process" as the decision mechanism on content
4. Copyleft licensing of content; in practice, defined by project, either GFDL or CC-BY.
5. The Board of Trustees has ultimate authority on all matters pertaining to the Wikimedia Foundation. By convention, Jimbo Wales retains some authority on certain projects. The Arbitration Committee can also make binding, final decisions such as banning an editor.

Several other projects are notable in their use of different principles. For example, h2g2 and some other collaborative projects have editorial boards that review content. Fred Bauder's fork Wikinfo project uses a sympathetic point of view rather than NPOV. Also Larry Sanger's Citizendium differs because it doesn't allow anyone to edit articles without registering.
and today:
meta:Founding principles wrote:Wikimedia projects have certain founding principles in common. These principles may evolve or be refined over time, but they are considered ideals essential to the founding of the Wikimedia projects – not to be confused with the Wikimedia Foundation (which also arose from the Wikimedia projects). People who strongly disagree with them are nonetheless expected to either respect them while collaborating on the site or turn to another site. Those unable or unwilling sometimes end up leaving the project.

These principles include:

1. Neutral point of view (NPOV) as a guiding editorial principle.
2. The ability of almost anyone to edit (most) articles without registration.
3. The "wiki process" as the final decision-making mechanism for all content.
4. The creation of a welcoming and collegial editorial environment.
5. Free licensing of content; in practice defined by each project as public domain, GFDL, CC-BY-SA or CC-BY.
6. Maintaining room for fiat to help resolve particularly difficult problems. On the English Wikipedia, an Arbitration Committee has the authority to make certain binding, final decisions such as banning an editor. Other wikis have set up similar frameworks.
The "founding issues" have gone from being "beyond debate" to being able to "evolve or change over time" (and in fact one of them has changed to be significantly different from what it actually was at the time of founding), someone's felt the need to distinguish Wikimedia projects from the Foundation, and a nasty tone of "love it or leave it" authoritarianism has entered the introduction. Isn't that charming?
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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by Vigilant » Thu Jul 17, 2014 4:04 am

Looks like there's some fallout on commons from Fabrice Florin's snotty tone about the Media Viewer.

Pete Forsyth (natch!) taking an axe to FF's uploads.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_ ... _%28WMF%29

FF getting indignant on his talk page!
Thank you, Jee. I just added an attribution for Aaron Arcos, the volunteer who photographed the presentation under my direction and using my camera. I also added a permission notice that this is a WMF staff upload, and that attribution to Wikimedia Foundation should cover any other licensing issues related to this photo, since all our work is CC-BY-SA-3.0. I would appreciate it if an admin could remove this request for deletion. This is yet another example of a campaign of personal harassment against me by Peteforsyth, which I have already reported before. Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 03:26, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by Randy from Boise » Thu Jul 17, 2014 4:57 am

Vigilant wrote:Looks like there's some fallout on commons from Fabrice Florin's snotty tone about the Media Viewer.

Pete Forsyth (natch!) taking an axe to FF's uploads.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_ ... _%28WMF%29

FF getting indignant on his talk page!
Thank you, Jee. I just added an attribution for Aaron Arcos, the volunteer who photographed the presentation under my direction and using my camera. I also added a permission notice that this is a WMF staff upload, and that attribution to Wikimedia Foundation should cover any other licensing issues related to this photo, since all our work is CC-BY-SA-3.0. I would appreciate it if an admin could remove this request for deletion. This is yet another example of a campaign of personal harassment against me by Peteforsyth, which I have already reported before. Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 03:26, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
WMF, meet the jackasses at Commons............... Commons, meet the jackasses at WMF!!!

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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by HRIP7 » Thu Jul 17, 2014 9:37 am

Vigilant wrote:Looks like there's some fallout on commons from Fabrice Florin's snotty tone about the Media Viewer.
This has been going on for some time. (Emphases in the below are mine, they're not present in the original.)
Hello Fastily, I would appreciate it if you could undelete the following pictures of recent WMF metrics meetings, as listed below and on my talk page:
File:Wikimedia Metrics Meeting - June 2014 - Photo 33.jpg
File:Wikimedia Metrics Meeting - June 2014 - Photo 28.jpg
File:Wikimedia Metrics Meeting - June 2014 - Photo 11.jpg
File:Wikimedia November Metrics Meeting Photo 16.jpg
File:Wikimedia November Metrics Meeting Photo 01.jpg
File:Wikimedia December Metrics Meeting - Photo 13.jpg
File:Wikimedia December Metrics Meeting - Photo 09.jpg
File:Wikimedia December Metrics Meeting - Photo 06.jpg
File:Wikimedia December Metrics Meeting - Photo 05.jpg
File:Wikimedia December Metrics Meeting - Photo 04.jpg
File:Wikimedia December Metrics Meeting - Photo 03.jpg
File:Wikimedia December Metrics Meeting - Photo 01.jpg
These images were inappropriately nominated for speedy deletion by Pete Forsyth, using the 'copyvio' template, when he could have used a more lenient 'no source since' template. Though some of his claims have merit, I do not believe they warrant a request for speedy deletion, for a number of reasons:

· speedy deletion does not give me enough time to address the issues reported by Pete.

· I have shown good faith in correcting previous issues about my photos within a few days from such reports.

· most of these issues are not serious copyright violations, as all slides shown by WMF employees typically have free licenses, even if attribution is currently missing in my metadata.

· all of my photos include links to the metrics meeting page, where original slides can be found, along with their attributions.

· many of the photos included in WMF slides have attributions near the picture or watermarked over it.

· many of the photos included in WMF slides are very small, qualifying for 'de minimis' exemption.

· many of the photos display slides that include my own photographs, which are also freely licensed under CC-BY-SA-3.0, so I didn't feel a double attribution was needed (but am happy to do so).

· some of the photos of our team presentations were taken by a WMF colleague at my request, using my camera, under my direction. I am happy to credit them as the author if required by policy, but I am in fact their primary author.

· I don't think that cropping the slides to remove the photos is a good solution, because it is important to include the whole slide along with the presenter for informational purposes.

· Pete has shown a pattern of personal harassment against me in recent months, which I believe is excessive if you consider the points above.

With that in mind, I would be grateful if you would kindly revert your deletions of these images, so that I can address any issues in coming days. Thanks for your consideration, and please let me know if you have any questions. Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 18:15, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

This is the first I have heard of my alleged harassment. I would have preferred to hear about it directly, or at least to have been notified. I object to that characterization. But if that's truly what you believe, @Fabrice Florin (WMF):, we should probably find a way to resolve it. I expect to continue to help improve the photos of the high profile Metrics and Activities meetings, which are widely viewed, and which reflect strongly on Wikimedia Commons, the WMF, and our ability to hold ourselves to consistent standards and avoid favoritism. I would not want Commons to become a place where a WMF employee can frivolously evade rules, that aren't all that hard to observe to begin with, simply by currying favor with decision-makers. That's not the kind of movement I signed up for. -Pete F (talk) 18:41, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

@Peteforsyth: Making a DRs is better than speedies if the user in question is trustworthy. (Odder recently gave him autopatroller rights.) For copyrights of photos taken by friends, consider m:Wikilegal/Authorship and Copyright Ownership too. @Fabrice Florin (WMF):, hope you will be more careful in future uploads. It is a bit ironic if a WMF staff is careless or ignorant in marking third-party rights. No need to take it that much personal. Jee 05:29, 29 June 2014 (UTC)
I have a feeling Pete's social capital at the Foundation must be diminishing fast.

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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by Vigilant » Thu Jul 17, 2014 10:25 am

I don't think Pete is playing to the WMF crowd.
He sees himself as a gadfly and populist agitator.

After that disastrous email about "Lila should leave Wil since he's a pain in the ass", Pete's been on a downward spiral.
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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by HRIP7 » Thu Jul 17, 2014 11:28 am

Vigilant wrote:I don't think Pete is playing to the WMF crowd.
He sees himself as a gadfly and populist agitator.

After that disastrous email about "Lila should leave Wil since he's a pain in the ass", Pete's been on a downward spiral.
He used to be a high-profile WMF staffer, in charge of the Public Policy Initiative. Funding for Wikipedia projects like Communicate OER, as well as the well-being of his Wikipedia consultancy firm, depend to some extent on his being considered "of the body".

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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by Kelly Martin » Thu Jul 17, 2014 6:55 pm

Vigilant wrote:I don't think Pete is playing to the WMF crowd.
He sees himself as a gadfly and populist agitator.

After that disastrous email about "Lila should leave Wil since he's a pain in the ass", Pete's been on a downward spiral.
Either Pete's gone bonkers, or he's anticipating a seismic shift in Wikimedia's operating culture or the relationship between the WMF and the projects in the near future. It's not entirely unreasonable to anticipate that and try to position yourself as a "community champion", especially if you're expecting a community revolt against the Foundation.

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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by Vigilant » Thu Jul 17, 2014 7:08 pm

Kelly Martin wrote:
Vigilant wrote:I don't think Pete is playing to the WMF crowd.
He sees himself as a gadfly and populist agitator.

After that disastrous email about "Lila should leave Wil since he's a pain in the ass", Pete's been on a downward spiral.
Either Pete's gone bonkers, or he's anticipating a seismic shift in Wikimedia's operating culture or the relationship between the WMF and the projects in the near future. It's not entirely unreasonable to anticipate that and try to position yourself as a "community champion", especially if you're expecting a community revolt against the Foundation.
I was going to write something similar.
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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by Randy from Boise » Thu Jul 17, 2014 7:11 pm

Kelly Martin wrote:
Vigilant wrote:I don't think Pete is playing to the WMF crowd.
He sees himself as a gadfly and populist agitator.

After that disastrous email about "Lila should leave Wil since he's a pain in the ass", Pete's been on a downward spiral.
Either Pete's gone bonkers, or he's anticipating a seismic shift in Wikimedia's operating culture or the relationship between the WMF and the projects in the near future. It's not entirely unreasonable to anticipate that and try to position yourself as a "community champion", especially if you're expecting a community revolt against the Foundation.
"From blind faith to abject disbelief lies but a single step."

I stole that from somebody somewhere and have tweaked it enough that I can't find it on the internets. It nevertheless remains one of my fundamental observations about human beings...

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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by Vigilant » Thu Jul 17, 2014 8:14 pm

Just got real.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =616531187
Given that the above case is now likely to be accepted, it would be better for all (well, all but you) that you resign your admin tools on .en and promise never to grant yourself any permissions on this project. Probably better to resign in real life, but I don't like to see anyone lose a job, so I won't advocate that. Even so, as a nasty little bully you're probably (just) able to see how this will pan out. Resign with a shred of dignity. If it helps I'm going to bully you all the way through the case - because nasty little playground bullies only respect other bullies. I'm not one - but I'll play the part to get you booted off the project. Pedro : Chat 19:51, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by Hex » Thu Jul 17, 2014 8:49 pm

My question, to this esteemed Wiki community, is this: Do you think that a Wiki could successfully generate a useful encyclopedia? -- JimboWales
Yes, but in the end it wouldn't be an encyclopedia. It would be a wiki. -- WardCunningham (Jan 2001)

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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by EricBarbour » Thu Jul 17, 2014 9:00 pm

Hex wrote:Vote for Pedro!
Please, not on an empty stomach.....I'm seriously still amazed that Mr. Orme has managed to maintain his administrator status, given what a complete asshole he's been to people for 8 years. Just removing vandalism and insulting people -- and not even very much of that.

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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by Vigilant » Thu Jul 17, 2014 9:03 pm

Hex wrote:Vote for Pedro!
Hello, John. John, hello. You're the one soul I would come up here to collect myself.

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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by TungstenCarbide » Thu Jul 17, 2014 9:22 pm

Vigilant wrote:
Hex wrote:Vote for Pedro!
Gone hiking. also, beware of women with crazy head gear and a dagger.

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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by Hex » Thu Jul 17, 2014 9:45 pm

The arb votes in the order they arrived:

15:38, 11 July 2014 (UTC) Seraphimblade: recuse
23:41, 11 July 2014 (UTC) AGK: accept
01:14, 12 July 2014 (UTC) T. Canens: accept
10:27, 12 July 2014 (UTC) Salvio giuliano: accept
02:12, 13 July 2014 (UTC) GorillaWarfare: accept
22:37, 13 July 2014 (UTC) Beeblebrox: accept
13:24, 14 July 2014 (UTC) David Fuchs: decline
01:09, 16 July 2014 (UTC) Carcharoth: accept
01:40, 16 July 2014 (UTC) NativeForeigner: accept
02:56, 16 July 2014 (UTC) Floquenbeam: decline
06:41, 16 July 2014 (UTC) Roger Davies: accept
15:41, 16 July 2014 (UTC) Newyorkbrad: accept
20:04, 16 July 2014 (UTC) LFaraone: accept

Half of them sat on the fence until someone else (Carcharoth) had cast the majority vote, and then suddenly it became easy for them to vote. Just fancy that.
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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by Randy from Boise » Fri Jul 18, 2014 1:33 am

Hex wrote:The arb votes in the order they arrived:

15:38, 11 July 2014 (UTC) Seraphimblade: recuse
23:41, 11 July 2014 (UTC) AGK: accept
01:14, 12 July 2014 (UTC) T. Canens: accept
10:27, 12 July 2014 (UTC) Salvio giuliano: accept
02:12, 13 July 2014 (UTC) GorillaWarfare: accept
22:37, 13 July 2014 (UTC) Beeblebrox: accept
13:24, 14 July 2014 (UTC) David Fuchs: decline
01:09, 16 July 2014 (UTC) Carcharoth: accept
01:40, 16 July 2014 (UTC) NativeForeigner: accept
02:56, 16 July 2014 (UTC) Floquenbeam: decline
06:41, 16 July 2014 (UTC) Roger Davies: accept
15:41, 16 July 2014 (UTC) Newyorkbrad: accept
20:04, 16 July 2014 (UTC) LFaraone: accept

Half of them sat on the fence until someone else (Carcharoth) had cast the majority vote, and then suddenly it became easy for them to vote. Just fancy that.
That's often the way it is in the American Congress on controversial votes. One person demonstrates they have full-sized gonads and then everyone jumps on the train.

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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by HRIP7 » Fri Jul 18, 2014 9:54 am


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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by Vigilant » Fri Jul 18, 2014 10:15 am

I'm gonna laugh when ARBCOM stumbles their stumbly selves around for a while and then do nothing to fix the problem.
They'll make some pronouncements about working better together, but if they try to do anything substantial, WP:CONEXCEPT comes right out and shits in their faces.

I cannot wait.

:popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:
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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by Kumioko » Fri Jul 18, 2014 3:00 pm

Vigilant wrote:I'm gonna laugh when ARBCOM stumbles their stumbly selves around for a while and then do nothing to fix the problem.
They'll make some pronouncements about working better together, but if they try to do anything substantial, WP:CONEXCEPT comes right out and shits in their faces.

I cannot wait.

:popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:
I think you really hit the nail on the head here Vigilant and I for one could not agree with youru assessment more. If there was ever an arbcom that could tackle a problem like this, the current one is not it. It is extremely unlikely that the arbcom will do anything at best and at worst they will make the problem worse, which unfortunately is often the case these days when they can even bring themselves to accept a case.

Historically, the end vote can be summed up in who and in how they accept the case. In this case there is enough accepts to be a case, but still a lot of declines which leads me to believe that the und result after a month or more of time is wasted, will be a null effect. Additionally, its entirely likely that any decision made by the Arbcom in relation to the WMF will likely result in a "Fuck you" (although they might word it differently) by the WMF. The WMF talks a lot about how they want to improve liaison with the community but really they don't give a damn about the community and never have. So anything that results in this case are probably going to be ignored by the WMF. Can you imagine though if the Arbcom voted to remove the admin right from eloquence?, I would love to see that day!

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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by mac » Fri Jul 18, 2014 3:21 pm

Kumioko wrote:
Vigilant wrote:I'm gonna laugh when ARBCOM stumbles their stumbly selves around for a while and then do nothing to fix the problem.
They'll make some pronouncements about working better together, but if they try to do anything substantial, WP:CONEXCEPT comes right out and shits in their faces.

I cannot wait.

:popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:
I think you really hit the nail on the head here Vigilant and I for one could not agree with youru assessment more. If there was ever an arbcom that could tackle a problem like this, the current one is not it. It is extremely unlikely that the arbcom will do anything at best and at worst they will make the problem worse, which unfortunately is often the case these days when they can even bring themselves to accept a case.

Historically, the end vote can be summed up in who and in how they accept the case. In this case there is enough accepts to be a case, but still a lot of declines which leads me to believe that the und result after a month or more of time is wasted, will be a null effect. Additionally, its entirely likely that any decision made by the Arbcom in relation to the WMF will likely result in a "Fuck you" (although they might word it differently) by the WMF. The WMF talks a lot about how they want to improve liaison with the community but really they don't give a damn about the community and never have. So anything that results in this case are probably going to be ignored by the WMF. Can you imagine though if the Arbcom voted to remove the admin right from eloquence?, I would love to see that day!
(emphasis added)

The WMF developers know they are developing crap to layer on top of other crap, and they know that they are incompetent. With this in mind, the "developers" can not directly collaborate with the community, because they might get called out on their incompetence, so they have chosen useful idiots to liaise with those who complain.

It was rather shocking to see Coren call the entire Wikipedia community 'replaceable'. With attitudes like that, it's no wonder the developers don't want to face an irate community without a human shield. Early liaisons were too aggressive for this sort of work, so they were promoted to better paying positions. The current liaisons are probably better liked than the previous one(s), but just as useless to the community. The developer community doubtless finds them indispensable, however.

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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by Hex » Fri Jul 18, 2014 4:29 pm

Image

Commons File:Virtuous Circle.svg, by Wikimedia Foundation developer Trevor Parscal (T-C-L).

Description: "Illustration of the virtuous circle of Wikimedia Projects. [sic]"

I don't know whether to :rotfl: or :sick: .
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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by Kumioko » Fri Jul 18, 2014 5:04 pm

Lol, yeah I know what you mean.

Its like the old addage, you can have it good, cheap or fast, pick any 2. Only in this case its You can have it Slow, expensive and incorrect, you are required by WMF policy to take all three.

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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by Vigilant » Fri Jul 18, 2014 5:05 pm

Kumioko wrote:Lol, yeah I know what you mean.

Its like the old addage, you can have it good, cheap or fast, pick any 2. Only in this case its You can have it Slow, expensive and incorrect, you are required by WMF policy to take all three.
With an extra helping of cheek.
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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by Hex » Fri Jul 18, 2014 5:40 pm

Oh, and don't forget:

[quote="Brandon "technology superstar" Harris on Quora"]
Seriously Making a Difference! We're a top-five property. However, unlike other top-fives, when you work at the Foundation you will be actively making a difference on a major scale, every day. Contrast with spending six months working on a minor widget on a minor part of a product that has a couple thousand people working on it. You'll be able to say, definitively, "I built this super important thing" and not have to dissemble with, "yeah, I worked on this thing with a couple hundred others."[/quote]
As opposed to, like, spending two years in a small team working on something that's still alpha quality and has virtually no uptake as a result?

Stand back! WMF Engineer coming through!

Image
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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by Vigilant » Fri Jul 18, 2014 5:46 pm

Hex wrote:Oh, and don't forget:

[quote="Brandon "technology superstar" Harris on Quora"]
Seriously Making a Difference! We're a top-five property. However, unlike other top-fives, when you work at the Foundation you will be actively making a difference on a major scale, every day. Contrast with spending six months working on a minor widget on a minor part of a product that has a couple thousand people working on it. You'll be able to say, definitively, "I built this super important thing" and not have to dissemble with, "yeah, I worked on this thing with a couple hundred others."
As opposed to, like, spending two years in a small team working on something that's still alpha quality and has virtually no uptake as a result?

Stand back! WMF Engineer coming through!

Image[/quote]
That's beautiful!

Rewritten for truth in advertising!
Seriously Pissing Off The Customer Base! We're a top-five property but behave like a junior high school band. However, unlike other top-fives, when you work at the Foundation you will be immediately thrown into the fire on a major scale, every day. Contrast with spending six months learning to do engineering right in a healthy, supporting environment that has a couple experienced thousand people working on it. You'll be able to say, definitively, "I tried to build this thing that I thought was super important but nobody wanted and fucked it up so hard that the users revolted and disabled my software when I feebly attempted to deploy it to the customer base for surreptitious alpha testing" and not have to dissemble with, "yeah, I worked on this thing with a couple hundred others and we got it right and millions of people are happily using it everyday."
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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by Hex » Fri Jul 18, 2014 5:59 pm

I might as well post the whole thing in all its barf-making glory, to save more gentle readers from having to waste time setting up a dummy Quora account. Formatting as in original:
Wikipedia: Are Wikipedia software development engineers of the caliber that could work as SDEs at Google / Facebook / Amazon / etc?

Wikipedia doesn't offer much in the way of compensation or perks compared to the for-profit companies; people are there because they care about the mission. Does this mean it has less talent than the aforementioned companies? The best engineers I know inevitably go to work at one of the places I just mentioned.

I am asking because I have good offers from two of the above-mentioned companies and I am considering applying to Wikipedia, but if I'm going to get less compensation, fewer perks, *and* be surrounded by less intelligent/talented people, I don't think it's the best bet for me right now.

(SDE => Software Development Engineer)

Brandon Harris, Senior Designer, Wikimedia Wikimedia Foundation
296 upvotes by Jeremy Miles, Heather Walls, Shannon Rosenberg, Quim Gil, Marc Bodnick, Kristen Kakos, Tim Johnson, Kevin Lin, Emilya Burd, Ben Mowat, Martin Strohmeier, Jimmy Wales, Pete Forsyth, Elizabeth L. Mead, Yair Livne, Belinda Gu, Nikhil Garg, Oleksii Kuchaiev, David Haddad, David S. Rose, (view all)

OB Disclaimer: I work for the Wikimedia Foundation, so there's going to be a bit of a "dragonslayer" tone in this answer.

This is a long answer, but I promise you, it pays off.

First, I'll address your concerns about working with "less talented people". There are two things I want to bring up here:

1) I've been working in this industry for close to 20 years now. I've worked with brilliant minds and layabout assholes. Foundation engineers tend to fall closer to the "brilliant" side of that spectrum. Many of them are younger and inexperienced, but that makes them no less smart.

2) If your deciding factor for working with an employer is based around "being around intelligent people" then I think you'll be disappointed no matter where you work. This is because of two things: a) there will always be people who you think are morons, and b) intelligent people tend to disagree with each other, and that can be a frustration that leads one to think that the other person is a moron.

Second, I'll discuss compensation and perks.

While the Foundation (as a non-profit) obviously cannot match higher-end salaries, there are a metric boatload of perks that are "invisible."

For example: Travel! Since I began my stint at the Foundation, I have been sent to the following places (usually for a week at a time): Gdansk, Poland; Berlin, Germany (twice!), Haifa, Israel; Mumbai, India; Washington, DC (twice!); Portland, Oregon. In the next year, I expect another trip to Berlin, another to Portland, and a trip to Hong Kong.

You don't get that at Google.

(Those people who don't work in our San Francisco offices will likely get several trips to SF per year, too.)

Another example: People! You'll never encounter your customers and users at the corporate shops. It's disturbing how awesome it is to get down and dirty and talk with the people who you are building things for. It's impossible to describe the feeling that you get doing this.

Another example: Street Cred! A business card with the Foundation logo on it tends to open doors and sway opinions. You'd be surprised (or maybe not) at how well-regarded Foundation employees are throughout the world. Foundation employment carries a sort of "micro-celebrity" bit with it.

Another example: Seriously Making a Difference! We're a top-five property. However, unlike other top-fives, when you work at the Foundation you will be actively making a difference on a major scale, every day. Contrast with spending six months working on a minor widget on a minor part of a product that has a couple thousand people working on it. You'll be able to say, definitively, "I built this super important thing" and not have to dissemble with, "yeah, I worked on this thing with a couple hundred others."

Another example: Co-workers! Listen: this isn't a job. It's a lifestyle. The people I work with - all of them - they're my friends first and co-workers second. We hang out together constantly. We celebrate each other's joys and commiserate each other's sorrows. Just this past weekend several of us spent the day tubing down the American river, just enjoying each other's company.

We've gotten tattoos together.

Here's a true story:

Back in March, my (then) girlfriend (now wife) drove my car down to Los Angeles to take part in a roller-derby workshop (she's a derby girl). While there, on the first day, she broke her ankle and had to go to the hospital. She didn't have insurance.

We spent the day waiting for x-rays and such not before trying to make a decision as to our course of action. Around 7:00 pm we got the final word: definitively broken, requiring surgery.

Around 7:30 that evening I called Gayle, our head of human resources. I told her what had happened and wanted to know if there was any way that my girlfriend could be covered by my insurance.

Gayle's first comment was this: "Do you need to be down in LA? I have a car; you can borrow it. I'll bring it over right now."

That's the kind of people we work with.

But the biggest perk, by far, is this:

You will wake up every morning knowing that you are making the world a better place.

It's that simple.

Most jobs I've had? I wake up and think, "Ugh, I've got to go to work." This job? I wake up and think, "Awesome! I get to go to work!"

There is no way to describe that feeling that will do it justice. Some days, the understanding of the Mission settles in my brain and I find myself possessed of a clarity and peace that is more powerful than any drug.

During the SOPA blackout, I put in 18 hour days. I was never tired. Do you know why? Because I wasn't working so that someone else got richer. I was working to make the world richer.

Education is the silver bullet to all of the world's problems. Humanity has seen maybe three or four Einstein-level brains in the past century, and all of them were from first-world countries. How many geniuses have we missed because they had the misfortune to be born poor on the streets of Mumbai?

The cure for cancer may very well be locked inside the brain of an impoverished child in Bangladesh. We can educate her - show her a bigger world. If we show her the way, she will make her mind known to us.

With access to free knowledge, we can cure diseases. We can develop better space programs. Free knowledge infects the brain and roots out intolerance. It ends oppression: the only way to oppress a people is to keep them ignorant.

I am not embellishing anything. This is real. I have it tattooed on my arm.

If you think you can do these things, if you think that this is what you want out of life - to make a real difference instead of making some investors richer - then you should apply.
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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by Vigilant » Fri Jul 18, 2014 6:07 pm

Another example: Street Cred! A business card with the Foundation logo on it tends to open doors and sway opinions. You'd be surprised (or maybe not) at how well-regarded Foundation employees are throughout the world. Foundation employment carries a sort of "micro-celebrity" bit with it.
With other engineers ... not so much.

Working at wikimedia
Image

I just found their customer relations motto, too!
Image
Followed by
Image
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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by Zoloft » Fri Jul 18, 2014 6:17 pm

Let me just extract one quote:
Devotee Brandon Harris wrote:Some days, the understanding of the Mission settles in my brain and I find myself possessed of a clarity and peace that is more powerful than any drug.
Obviously a follower of Bhagwan Jimbo.

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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by Vigilant » Fri Jul 18, 2014 6:25 pm

Zoloft wrote:Let me just extract one quote:
Devotee Brandon Harris wrote:Some days, the understanding of the Mission settles in my brain and I find myself possessed of a clarity and peace that is more powerful than any drug.
Obviously a follower of Bhagwan Jimbo.
True Beliebers often substitute passion for logic or competence.

He's right on one thing, it's a drug and he's an addict.
He's reached the point where's he's crashed all the veins in his arms and legs and has to shoot up in his taint.
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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by Hex » Fri Jul 18, 2014 6:53 pm

I'm on a roll with finding things today... I've barely more than skimmed this, but I know all the devs and management heads will get a kick out of it: notes from a 2011 meeting between WMF developers and a couple of guys from ThoughtWorks.
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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by thekohser » Fri Jul 18, 2014 6:59 pm

Hex wrote:I'm on a roll with finding things today... I've barely more than skimmed this, but I know all the devs and management heads will get a kick out of it: notes from a 2011 meeting between WMF developers and a couple of guys from ThoughtWorks.
I can assure you that a flowchart that requires three or four legal sheets of paper to print out, then tape together, is probably a flowchart that nobody is actually going to read and comprehend. It shouldn't be constructed in the first place.
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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by Kumioko » Fri Jul 18, 2014 7:38 pm

thekohser wrote:
Hex wrote:I'm on a roll with finding things today... I've barely more than skimmed this, but I know all the devs and management heads will get a kick out of it: notes from a 2011 meeting between WMF developers and a couple of guys from ThoughtWorks.
I can assure you that a flowchart that requires three or four legal sheets of paper to print out, then tape together, is probably a flowchart that nobody is actually going to read and comprehend. It shouldn't be constructed in the first place.
Maybe Sheldon can help them out:

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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by Hex » Fri Jul 18, 2014 7:52 pm

More great management ideas that didn't work.
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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by Vigilant » Fri Jul 18, 2014 9:25 pm

The problem with those slides is not the ideas on the slides, which they gratuitously stole from google and elsewhere, it's that THEY HAVE NO COMPETENT MANAGERS ANYWHERE IN THE ORGANIZATION.

Jury is still out on Lila, but early returns look pretty bad.
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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by EricBarbour » Fri Jul 18, 2014 9:32 pm

Hex wrote:More great management ideas that didn't work.
I'd make a list of these WMF abominations, but it would be a very long list. They do have one inherent, overarching talent: inventing things that don't improve Wikipedia content, and which fail to attract more editors to it.

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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by Vigilant » Fri Jul 18, 2014 9:35 pm

EricBarbour wrote:
Hex wrote:More great management ideas that didn't work.
I'd make a list of these WMF abominations, but it would be a very long list. They do have one inherent, overarching talent: inventing things that don't improve Wikipedia content, and which fail to attract more editors to it.
At some point in the near future, the churn itself becomes the story.

"Why can't these guys deliver?!"
"What the fuck is wrong with the engineering department?!"

If there were ANY COMPETENT MANAGERS in the building, this question would have been asked a good, long while ago.
The answers aren't hard to figure out, but they are uncomfortable to look at.
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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by Hex » Fri Jul 18, 2014 9:35 pm

My question, to this esteemed Wiki community, is this: Do you think that a Wiki could successfully generate a useful encyclopedia? -- JimboWales
Yes, but in the end it wouldn't be an encyclopedia. It would be a wiki. -- WardCunningham (Jan 2001)

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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by Midsize Jake » Fri Jul 18, 2014 10:03 pm

I generally avoid most subjects related to hiring because there are numerous people here who are more qualified to discuss that than I am, but this really is becoming a good example of how Wikipedia's three main problems (IMO) - arrogance, narcissism, and cultishness - translate into real-world poor performance at the organizational level. And all of it goes back to the fact that so many of the WMF leadership and staff got their start in the Wikipedia user community itself.

Because of their arrogance, they believe that developers will self-motivate and even self-train, based primarily (if not solely!) on the fact that they'll now be working for them.

Because of their narcissism, they believe it's more important that the prospective hire appears to like them and be "friendly" (i.e., non-critical) than that the person has shown a history of producing stable, usable product features.

Because of their cultishness, they believe it's more important that the person they're interviewing "believes in the mission" than that he/she has work experience that's relevant to their needs.

To the extent that the managers are hired from within (which seems to be more often than not), this would apply to them too.

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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by dogbiscuit » Fri Jul 18, 2014 10:31 pm

Hex wrote:I'm on a roll with finding things today... I've barely more than skimmed this, but I know all the devs and management heads will get a kick out of it: notes from a 2011 meeting between WMF developers and a couple of guys from ThoughtWorks.
Didn't Erik attend?
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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by HRIP7 » Fri Jul 18, 2014 11:28 pm

Hex wrote:Bonus luls: site:mediawiki.org "pain points"
Management-speak is a bane. It is so much easier to write a slide about "identifying pain points and prioritising fixes" than it is to actually do it.

Management-speak never actually says anything. It just invents zillions of newfangled ways to talk about everyone working together as a team to achieve "improvement". It's an entirely unobjectionable and safe thing to say, whereas if you were to name specifics, people might disagree.

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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by mac » Fri Jul 18, 2014 11:32 pm

Hex wrote:Bonus luls: site:mediawiki.org "pain points"
I had to look it up. This definition seems apt: link. The only "see also" item is "circling the drain. :twilightzone:

(edited)

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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by Hex » Sat Jul 19, 2014 12:41 am

Oh, I forgot one.

Image

site:mediawiki.org "solve for"

It's hard to adequately explain my distaste for this particular piece of business jargon.
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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by Vigilant » Sat Jul 19, 2014 1:31 am

Hex wrote:Oh, I forgot one.

Image

site:mediawiki.org "solve for"

It's hard to adequately explain my distaste for this particular piece of business jargon.
As a math guy, I share your disgust.
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Re: Media Viewer - A new hope

Unread post by HRIP7 » Tue Jul 22, 2014 2:33 pm

Another lovely bit of dialogue on Talk:Jimbo Wales
Let me chip in here, if only to communicate that it is not only a handful of usual suspects that are worried by WMF's handling of software updates. Jimbo Wales, you sit on the Board of Trustees. A legitimate concern has been brought up, and you dismiss it as 'insults' and "spreading FUD". There is no insult in saying that the VE deployment was characterised by utter incompetence, both in coding and in communication with the community, that has been documented ad nauseam. Thus, there is no insult in speculating that the same team might fail again. You are old enough to remember the joke "MS Windows - from the people that brought you edlin". And thus, there is no insult in speculating what the motivation might be of a team that in the past could not gather customer requirements, could not roll out software that works, and became defensive when massive bugs were pointed out. Feynman's "Safecracker meets Safecracker" is a classic on this: (quoted from memory) 'My boss asks me to drill a safe [...] I have no idea how to do that, but I'm the janitor. So I take my drill to the room with the safe and make zzzzzzz, zzzzzzzzzzzzz. --Pgallert (talk) 22:06, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

Pgallert, you misunderstand me I'm afraid. I have no problem with legitimate concerns, and legitimate concerns are neither insults nor FUD. But "Frankenstein monster", "multimillion dollar careerist impluse" and the rest was simply not helpful for Carrite to have said for the simple reason that neither of those is either objectively true nor actionable. It is patently obvious that our antiquated way of holding discussions in raw wikitext is significantly inferior to what is possible, without losing any functionality. Flow is an effort to take what we already do and make it both easier for longterm highly proficient users and easier for newcomers - and it strikes me as clear that improvement will not be difficult given how horrible it is now. To reply to you, for example, one of the most common things that anyone would do in a discussion, I had to scroll up to the most recent section break and click edit then come down and cut and paste (or tediously count) indention levels and add a colon. I then have to sign my comment by either typing dash dash tilde tilde tilde tilde or typing out my username or something or waiting for a bot to notice that I didn't do it and do it for me. That's all completely silly.

No amount of false ranting about the evil developers and their careerist goals (despite that they work for significantly less than they could get at Google or elsewhere in most cases!) is going to result in one line of better code being written. Constructive and loving feedback about what works and what doesn't in proposed designs, with clear and NPOV explanations of why, based on our intimate knowledge of the editing process is the way forward. That's why I will continue to critique those who engage in unnecessary dramatics and insults of good people. As I said to Carrite above, if he wants to have a "frank" discussion of how much he hates certain developers, he can do it with friends in private email. But please let's use this page to be productive.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:02, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

That would only be true if the developers were sufficiently skilled to land themselves jobs at major corporations such as Google, which they clearly are not. Eric Corbett 14:19, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

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