Is it a bird, is it a plane? No, it's Superprotect

[Vigilant]

When is the next board election? If the lapdogs got voted off in favour of some troublemakers, it might also cause some panic.

June 2015, I believe.

Convenient that the WMF decided to start this ruckus right _after_ the previous board elections...

You are presuming they have political foresight. Rather this is an ad hoc circus being driven by their (inept) software release process.

RfB

I wouldn't be surprised in the least to see that this was thought of at least inside the board.

[Randy from Boise]

When is the next board election? If the lapdogs got voted off in favour of some troublemakers, it might also cause some panic.

June 2015, I believe.

Convenient that the WMF decided to start this ruckus right _after_ the previous board elections...

You are presuming they have political foresight. Rather this is an ad hoc circus being driven by their (inept) software release process.

RfB

I wouldn't be surprised in the least to see that this was thought of at least inside the board.

Nah, there's not one of them on that board, including Jimmy Wales, who is really good at politics. Sue Gardner is the closest thing to a real political animal that they have on their team, and that is saying very, very little. They are bureaucrats, not pols.

RfB

[Vigilant]

Those of you in the reform crowd should be all over these pages reminding the editors who hate this "right" that they should remember to keep their powder dry for the next board election...regardless of the outcome of this particular struggle.

For example,
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Request ... ect_rights

[Randy from Boise]

Those of you in the reform crowd should be all over these pages reminding the editors who hate this "right" that they should remember to keep their powder dry for the next board election...regardless of the outcome of this particular struggle.

For example,
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Request ... ect_rights

I think we've pretty much went over this in the last few months, didn't we? That the Board hires the Executive Director and obsesses with raising and spending funds, offering vague, self-congratulatory policy initiatives and otherwise has not a whole lot of real power...

The power in the WMF-type system inevitably devolves to the Executive Director. In a power vacuum — which may be the case now in SF, although I seem to be in the minority in seeing a weak personality in charge of the show — the top staffers like Assistant Director/Software Boss Erik Möller have had freedom of action. The ED seems to be putting forward a "we are all united about this" line here, probably after the fact in the case of Superprotection — which was an ill-timed community relations blunder. Not coincidentally, Superprotection happened while Ms. Tretikov was in London, as you will recall...

RfB

P.S. A definition from my main man John Kenneth Galbraith: "Power is the ability to make a decision and cause others to comply."

[EricBarbour]

In a power vacuum — which may be the case now in SF, although I seem to be in the minority in seeing a weak personality in charge of the show

Not necessarily, I think most of the people here would look at the idiotic, half-formed things the WMF does every day, regardless of whomever the Director is, and conclude that the "organization" is nothing but a giant vacuum chamber, springing a million tiny leaks. One gets plugged and five more open up.

[HRIP7]

The German survey has now ended. There were 664 votes for Proposal 1 (requesting that the Foundation immediately remove superprotect), with 103 votes against.

An interesting analysis at the bottom of the page notes that more than half of the 103 "No" voters would not have had voting rights in a normal German Wikipedia RfC (Request for Comment) – because they are newly registered accounts, accounts with very few edits, suspected sleeper socks, etc.

Among the 664 "Yes" voters, on the other hand, 573 would have had the right to vote in a standard RfC. Moreover, they included 98 users with advanced privileges (vs. just 4 among the "No" voters), and have a combined total of 11.441 million German Wikipedia edits (vs. just 0.952 million for the "No" voters).

The analysis also says there has never to their knowledge been any RfC or survey with such high participation in the German Wikipedia. The conclusion of the analysis is that the German core community that keeps the project going has voted against the Wikimedia Foundation. (Recall that the German Wikipedia has fewer than 900 users making more than 100 edits a month.)

Edit: The analysis mentioned above has now been moved to the talk page.

[EricBarbour]

The blog post made the front page of Slashdot just now.

Note:

So I recently heard about a programming language called Nimrod [nimrod-lang.org]. It's relatively new, but it's very capable and even the venerable Dr. Dobb's Journal featured it recently.

I wanted to get a broader overview of it, so I thought I'd check out Wikipedia's article about it. After all, it's a language I'd managed to hear about, and I don't keep up to date with developments in the field very much these days. It was even featured by a widely read publication. So that should make it notable enough to have a Wikipedia article, right? Nope.

I quickly found out that the notability idiots over at Wikipedia have repeatedly chosen to target it for elimination.

I tried reading some of their justification for deleting the article, but it made absolutely no sense. It's a perfectly good topic to cover, and clearly I and others want to read about it! Yet these totalitarian shitbags feel the need to censor, censor, censor and then censor some more.

The harm these monsters do by getting rid of useful articles far, far outweighs any harm that could ever be done by having allegedly "non-notable" articles exist uncensored. I'd totally rather than the article about Nimrod stay, and anyone who doesn't like it can fuck off and visit some other web site.

In the second AFD for the Nimrod article, someone gave a link to a Hacker News discussion.

Offtopic: I f*cking hate the deletionists. I come across articles deleted because of "lack of notability," but if they lacked notability (and I didn't create it), why was I looking for it. They make the whole of Wikipedia much worse than it would be otherwise and prevent me from contributing even more money and time to Wikipedia.

And then people start quoting WP:WHATEVER, ErrantX shows up to quote chapter and verse, re-delete the article, and spew Wiki-propaganda, then some try to shout down the others, and it falls apart.

[Vigilant]

I hope the WMF suparprotects ever single css, js, html file and owns them all.

Every VE fuckup will come home to roost.

Chess pieces or mangled text, sir? Whatever your preference... Or, we can deadlock the fucking engines on each other!!!


The WMF is staffed with inexperienced morons and managed by oblivious fucktards.

[Vigilant]

Another haiku approaches....

Lila Tretikov
The failed savior here
Roasted Unicorn

[EricBarbour]

Another haiku approaches....

Lila Tretikov
The failed savior here
Roasted Unicorn

[Cla68]

I just noticed that my boycott suggestion actually received some responses. Basically, "No, a boycott is going too far. We should be able to find a compromise with less drastic action."

[Kelly Martin]

Not coincidentally, Superprotection happened while Ms. Tretikov was in London, as you will recall...

Erik has a long history of instigating crises while Jimmy was off traveling, but that might be coincidence, given how much time Jimmy spends traveling.

[Tippi Hadron]

Another haiku approaches....

Lila Tretikov
The failed savior here
Roasted Unicorn

They should have hired a professional. (SFW)

[HRIP7]

They should have hired a professional. (SFW)

I've put up a translation of one analysis of the German survey (by User:Hubertl, using a rough translation by User:Ca$e as a base).

Can we evaluate this result over and above the mere number of participants?

Yes, we can!

It comes as no surprise that the result of this survey is quite unambiguous. However, we can gain further insight by taking our analysis beyond the mere number of votes cast.

This was a survey open to everyone. There were no constraints on who was entitled to vote. Nevertheless, we can evaluate the results of the survey by applying the standards that would have applied to a Meinungsbild [the German Wikipedia's version of a Request for Comment – the result of a Meinungsbild is considered binding in this community, and Meinungsbild participation is restricted to contributors whose work in article space fulfils certain minimum criteria], simply by weighting votes differently. First, we can single out those who would have been entitled to vote in a Meinungsbild. Second – and this is material, given previous doubts about how important the contributors in question are to our project – we can weight votes according to voters' actual project contributions as authors and in other areas. This can further be separated into (German-language) Wikipedia edits and additional edits across all other projects. (The results aren't absolutely precise, because the last day of the survey (2014/08/21) has only been partially analysed in terms of participants' edits, but this fuzziness amounts to less than 0.1%).

The results are astonishing. We only analysed the votes for the first question:

1. As far as we can remember, there has never been a higher participation rate. Taking solely the first question, there were 664 people voting yes, 103 voting no.

2. For those voting yes (on question 1), their total edit count for de:Wikipedia amounts to 11,441,000 edits.

3. For those voting yes (on question 1), their total edit count across all projects amounts to 15,450,000 edits.

4. For those voting no (on question 1), their total edit count for de:Wikipedia amounts to 952,000 edits.

5. For those voting no (on question 1), their total edit count across all projects amounts to 1,150,000 edits.

There is an apparent disparity here, for while there were more than 6.5 times as many yes-voters as no-voters, the yes-voters' edit count is 12 to 15 times higher than the edit count of those who voted no.

The reasons are as follows:

1. Among no-voters, more than 50% (53 vs. 50) would not have been entitled to vote in a Meinungsbild.

2. Among no-voters, there were 10 IPs and a large number of newly registered users, but also a large number of users who registered their accounts many years ago, but have made very few edits („sleepers“?).

3. Thus, those 53 accounts/IPs are responsible for just 26,000 edits to Wikipedia, and 38,200 edits across all projects combined.

4. The rest of the 952,000 (Wikipedia) or 1,150,000 (all projects) edits assignable to the remaining 50 no-voters who did have voting rights reflect, with few exceptions, accounts with low edit counts.

5. Among yes-voters, there were 571 participants with voting rights, and 93 without.

6. The yes-voters with voting rights have contributed a total of 11,415,500 edits to Wikipedia, and 15,257,005 edits to all projects combined.

7. Those not entitled to vote among yes-voters have contributed 25,100 edits to Wikipedia, and 195,200 edits to all projects combined.

Another noteworthy fact:

Among yes-voters, we find 98 users with advanced privileges (active or formerly active administrators, or members of the de:WP Arbitration Committee); among no-voters there are only 4. All of them, however, were at least entitled to vote.

Conclusion: The result of the Poll regarding the introduction of the MediaViewer has been ridiculed because of the allegedly small number of participants (262, of which 190 voted for deactivation). The same can of course be done with this survey, if you compare numbers here to the number of Wikipedia readers. But if you take a closer look at the edit counts, it becomes clear that the support base of this poll, as an expression of strong disagreement with the WMF decision, is the core editors who have decisively engaged in building and shaping the German-language Wikipedia (as can be shown on the basis of the edit counts).

In addition, the comments among no-voters indicate that many of them used this survey as an opportunity to express their individual negative experiences with certain administrators or the generally unfriendly working climate, by casting a protest vote.

The comments from those who abstained are also interesting. They, too, include some who did not agree with how DaB. proceeded, yet feel an urgent need to resolve the relationship between the community and the Foundation. To that extent, if things had been handled differently, they too would generally have been found among the yes-voters.

The preceding analysis used this tool.

For links see original.

[HRIP7]

More coverage:

Torsten Kleinz, Heise Online, Grundsatzdebatte: Wer hat in der Wikipedia das Sagen?

Nick Farrell, Fudzilla, Wikipedia is revolting: Donations causing splits

[SB_Johnny]

Nick Farrell, Fudzilla, Wikipedia is revolting: Donations causing splits

Wow, that's pretty much what the Wikipedia article about our post would look like. Not quite a copy-and-paste, but pretty close.

[Poetlister]

Plus that wall looks much too authentically wall-like to be a WMF creation. Needs gaping holes and sections made of snowflakes.

And bricks of different sizes and parts of the wall at odd angles.

[Neotarf]

Friday afternoon banter continues on the mailing list.
Erik Möller:

This all presupposes that we collectively sign up for this whole
"shared power" idea. It's a Board creation, a guiding principle, and
all that. But that doesn't mean the community of people who've spent
much of their lives building Wikimedia's projects as volunteers do
believe in it.

And the proposed Technology Committee would be acceptable for dispute resolution only, certainly not for signing off on software releases.

Curious, the title of the thread is "community disputes about deployments". When did a software release become a "deployment", as if it was a military operation. Or a "roll out" as if it was a shiny new car that only needs a model draped over it to induce people to open their wallets.

WP has a unique niche, an educational mission. They need to pay more attention to their branding. Would you go to a job interview in your underwear? Would you expect to meet your future spouse when you need a shower? Yet, time and time again, broken software is foisted on the users, and then the software people wonder why there isn't more acceptance for their efforts. If you have to invent "superprotect" to get people to use your product, something is wrong.

[Jim]

Friday afternoon banter continues on the mailing list.
Erik Möller:

This all presupposes that we collectively sign up for this whole
"shared power" idea. It's a Board creation, a guiding principle, and
all that. But that doesn't mean the community of people who've spent
much of their lives building Wikimedia's projects as volunteers do
believe in it.

And the proposed Technology Committee would be acceptable for dispute resolution only, certainly not for signing off on software releases.

Curious, the title of the thread is "community disputes about deployments". When did a software release become a "deployment", as if it was a military operation. Or a "roll out" as if it was a shiny new car that only needs a model draped over it to induce people to open their wallets.

WP has a unique niche, an educational mission. They need to pay more attention to their branding. Would you go to a job interview in your underwear? Would you expect to meet your future spouse when you need a shower? Yet, time and time again, broken software is foisted on the users, and then the software people wonder why there isn't more acceptance for their efforts. If you have to invent "superprotect" to get people to use your product, something is wrong.

And the starkest thing to me, is this:

BatProtect was a mega stamp of a little foot. A line in the sand. A show of power. A statement if you will.
Now here we are, back to "you can't do that" "Yes we can" ineffectual little arguments.

Erik should hand back the jackboots. He fancied himself in them, but in the end he didn't have the figure to carry them off in public. Imagine that.

[Kelly Martin]

Curious, the title of the thread is "community disputes about deployments". When did a software release become a "deployment", as if it was a military operation. Or a "roll out" as if it was a shiny new car that only needs a model draped over it to induce people to open their wallets.

The terms "deployment" and "roll out" are standardly used in the industry and have been for a long time. I wouldn't read any element of pretense into that.

[Jim]

Curious, the title of the thread is "community disputes about deployments". When did a software release become a "deployment", as if it was a military operation. Or a "roll out" as if it was a shiny new car that only needs a model draped over it to induce people to open their wallets.

The terms "deployment" and "roll out" are standardly used in the industry and have been for a long time. I wouldn't read any element of pretense into that.

Agreed.

Except... Media Viewer is basically a little javascript image viewer, the kind of thing that comes standard with "My First Blogsite" packages (and works). There's a certain, low-level whiff of pretension about using big boy, "industry standard" terms for your widely rejected "back of a beermat" effort to replicate that simple little thing.
Of course... If they didn't use those terms we'd criticise them for that, too, as isolated, little-league and unprofessional

Poor souls can't win...

[Jim]

Or a "roll out" as if it was a shiny new car that only needs a model draped over it to induce people to open their wallets.

Though here, I feel, you're hitting on something.

Imagine a world where new features came "draped" with an introductory, interactive banner, featuring tantalising yet tasteful pictures of the most attractive, smiling wikipedians, on which you could click for help:

• "Hi, I'm Risker. This is the new Visual Editor. Click on me if you want to know how to use it to make absolutely any edit you want. (Clue - you can't...yet...)"
  
  "Hi, I'm Gorm. Our new Media Viewer is made of rum, resolution, blood, sweat and tears. Click my tattoo if you're too stupid to understand what it does. I'll talk you through it, kindly, slowly and lovingly."
  
  "Hi, I'm James F.."

Anyway, you get the idea...

Clippy? Bah.

[Neotarf]

Clippy? Bah.

[Jim]

Clippy? Bah.

piccie..

Thank you. There was a similar image I found, but embedding it was too hard, and creating one came up against that "can't be arsed" brick wall.
That's very cool, though - you just need to add a button for "revert every bastard who reverted me while I was out buying cheetos" and it'll be golden.

[Neotarf]

Curious, the title of the thread is "community disputes about deployments". When did a software release become a "deployment", as if it was a military operation. Or a "roll out" as if it was a shiny new car that only needs a model draped over it to induce people to open their wallets.

The terms "deployment" and "roll out" are standardly used in the industry and have been for a long time. I wouldn't read any element of pretense into that.

Not necessarily "pretense", but more of a Babel-17, Sapir-Whorfian attitude. I first heard "deploy" used outside a military context during the 2003 Iraq thing; Etymology Online still only lists the military usage. What if the linguistic overtones invoked, say, being a writer or author, instead of a military general. Would the result be a less confrontational dialogue?

[Neotarf]

Clippy? Bah.

piccie..

...you just need to add a button for "revert every bastard who reverted me while I was out buying cheetos" and it'll be golden.

An auto-revert option I'm sure would regain some lost popularity for the development team. </irony>

Not sure why I went to the trouble of the image, maybe because of the prompt to disable Media Viewer. The ability to disable any given feature is being given a lot of play here, for instance, quoting Erik Möller again:

As a user, it's trivial to disable Media Viewer. Not quite as easy
as we want it to be, but literally a scroll-down and click away, which
is more than you can say about most MediaWiki preferences. It's also
trivial to skip on a case-by-case basis -- just open an image in a new
tab.

But it's only "trivial" to disable if you know how to do it. If you try to use it and simply run up against a brick wall, your only option is to stop using images. Or you have to develop a relationship with someone who has specialized technical skilz or insider information who you can tap every time you run into one of these snags.

A further irony is that you know someone is going to come up with some statistics about how many users have not turned off the Media Viewer, in order to "prove" how popular it is.

The WMF is ignoring the importance of first impressions. I totally support the idea of the Virtual Editor--in principle at least. But in practice, my first and only experience with it was overwhelmingly negative, and I am unlikely to try it again.

[Kelly Martin]

Not necessarily "pretense", but more of a Babel-17, Sapir-Whorfian attitude. I first heard "deploy" used outside a military context during the 2003 Iraq thing; Etymology Online still only lists the military usage. What if the linguistic overtones invoked, say, being a writer or author, instead of a military general. Would the result be a less confrontational dialogue?

Well, I wouldn't say that the WMF engineering team stands out in this regard relative to other software engineering organizations. Software engineers are, in general, not known for being nonconfrontational in their dealings with users.

That said, "deploy" is incredibly widely used in both software and systems engineering, Etymology Online or not. I've been "deploying updates" for at least a decade now. I actually suspect that it crossed over into systems engineering from Star Trek, but that's just a wild-assed guess.

[Neotarf]

I've been "deploying updates" for at least a decade now.

Well, 2003 is more than a decade. I never heard of it before, but I've been out of that loop for a while now. It would help if they took more care with their communications--it's all UI and UX...I found out NPS stands for "Net Promoter Score", not "no problems"--or failing that, do some actual editing, so they can understand how their applications are used. It seems they are trying to convert the choir. But then again, a lot of the purpose of that kind of language is to make things more, and not less inaccessible.

[Zoloft]

Parachutes are deployed too, and that's usually a welcome event.

I agree that saying 'UI'' instead of 'user interface' is too vague and off-putting.

Saying 'how people can work with the software' would be even better.

[Kelly Martin]

I've been "deploying updates" for at least a decade now.

Well, 2003 is more than a decade. I never heard of it before, but I've been out of that loop for a while now. It would help if they took more care with their communications--it's all UI and UX...I found out NPS stands for "Net Promoter Score", not "no problems"--or failing that, do some actual editing, so they can understand how their applications are used. It seems they are trying to convert the choir. But then again, a lot of the purpose of that kind of language is to make things more, and not less inaccessible.

As we've been saying all along, their change management process is horrific, especially when a change impacts user experience; they make no effort to obtain stakeholder buyin, or even to identify stakeholders, and very little effort to educate users about impending changes, let alone give users the impression that they have even a scintilla of input in such changes. This generally only happens when the user base is captive, because a noncaptive user base would just walk away from such abuse, especially if repeated.

[mac]

Not necessarily "pretense", but more of a Babel-17, Sapir-Whorfian attitude. I first heard "deploy" used outside a military context during the 2003 Iraq thing; Etymology Online still only lists the military usage. What if the linguistic overtones invoked, say, being a writer or author, instead of a military general. Would the result be a less confrontational dialogue?

Well, I wouldn't say that the WMF engineering team stands out in this regard relative to other software engineering organizations. Software engineers are, in general, not known for being nonconfrontational in their dealings with users.

That said, "deploy" is incredibly widely used in both software and systems engineering, Etymology Online or not. I've been "deploying updates" for at least a decade now. I actually suspect that it crossed over into systems engineering from Star Trek, but that's just a wild-assed guess.

I imagine the WMF engineering team members as this guy:



(edited)

[HRIP7]

Leonhard Dobusch, Netzpolitik.org: Kommentar: Der “Superprotect”-Streit in Wikipedia, oder: Souverän ist, wer über Root-Zugriff verfügt

[Randy from Boise]

Not necessarily "pretense", but more of a Babel-17, Sapir-Whorfian attitude. I first heard "deploy" used outside a military context during the 2003 Iraq thing; Etymology Online still only lists the military usage. What if the linguistic overtones invoked, say, being a writer or author, instead of a military general. Would the result be a less confrontational dialogue?

Well, I wouldn't say that the WMF engineering team stands out in this regard relative to other software engineering organizations. Software engineers are, in general, not known for being nonconfrontational in their dealings with users.

That said, "deploy" is incredibly widely used in both software and systems engineering, Etymology Online or not. I've been "deploying updates" for at least a decade now. I actually suspect that it crossed over into systems engineering from Star Trek, but that's just a wild-assed guess.

I imagine the WMF engineering team members as this guy:



(edited)

I've still got one of those purple iMacs...

tim

[Poetlister]

Parachutes are deployed too, and that's usually a welcome event.

I agree that saying 'UI'' instead of 'user interface' is too vague and off-putting.

Saying 'how people can work with the software' would be even better.

I was very confused when I heard people talking about "gooey" in connection with program development untill I realised it was GUI - graphical user interface. Mind you, "gooey" isn't a bad description of the visual editor.

[Mancunium]

Not sure if Wikiwand belongs in this thread. I have only seen positive reviews, and never tried it.

Wikiwand Gives Us The Wikipedia Redesign Jimmy Wales Won't
This magic wand gives Wikipedia a modern redesign on any device.
Co.Design, 25 August 2014 linkhttp://www.fastcodesign.com/3034700/wik ... wales-wont[/link]

We've seen our share of concepts for imbuing Wikipedia with a more modern and responsive design. But it's not likely that Jimmy Wales and Co. will adopt any of them--or any radical redesign, for that matter. The reason why is relatively straightforward. Wikipedia wants its site to work just as well on 10-year-old computers with low-resolution monitors and slow dial-up connections as it does on more modern devices. So Wikipedia plays things conservatively. But there's no reason you can't enjoy a better-looking Wikipedia.

Wikiwand is a tool that showcases Wikipedia articles with better typography, navigation, and layout on both widescreen and mobile devices. Using Wikiwand is easy. Instead of going to Wikipedia's website, just search for your articles through Wikiwand.com, which will then dynamically translate your articles into a more responsive layout with big, beautiful header images, easier-to-read typography, a universal navigation panel, and more. If you're a Google Chrome user, you can even install an extension that will automatically translate Wikipedia links into the Wikiwand format. Because the extension intelligent pre-fetches assets, the Chrome extension actually allows you to load Wikipedia pages faster than on Wikipedia proper. [...] Try Wikiwand for yourself here: linkhttp://www.wikiwand.com/[/link]

[Neotarf]

Not sure if Wikiwand belongs in this thread. I have only seen positive reviews, and never tried it.

SlimVirgin has started a thread. She links to several articles through the viewer.

[Kumioko]

Not sure if Wikiwand belongs in this thread. I have only seen positive reviews, and never tried it.

Wikiwand Gives Us The Wikipedia Redesign Jimmy Wales Won't
This magic wand gives Wikipedia a modern redesign on any device.
Co.Design, 25 August 2014 linkhttp://www.fastcodesign.com/3034700/wik ... wales-wont[/link]

We've seen our share of concepts for imbuing Wikipedia with a more modern and responsive design. But it's not likely that Jimmy Wales and Co. will adopt any of them--or any radical redesign, for that matter. The reason why is relatively straightforward. Wikipedia wants its site to work just as well on 10-year-old computers with low-resolution monitors and slow dial-up connections as it does on more modern devices. So Wikipedia plays things conservatively. But there's no reason you can't enjoy a better-looking Wikipedia.

Wikiwand is a tool that showcases Wikipedia articles with better typography, navigation, and layout on both widescreen and mobile devices. Using Wikiwand is easy. Instead of going to Wikipedia's website, just search for your articles through Wikiwand.com, which will then dynamically translate your articles into a more responsive layout with big, beautiful header images, easier-to-read typography, a universal navigation panel, and more. If you're a Google Chrome user, you can even install an extension that will automatically translate Wikipedia links into the Wikiwand format. Because the extension intelligent pre-fetches assets, the Chrome extension actually allows you to load Wikipedia pages faster than on Wikipedia proper. [...] Try Wikiwand for yourself here: linkhttp://www.wikiwand.com/[/link]

Actually I have to agree with this. I think this used to be true up until a couple years ago. However with the changes the WMF has been releasing, the site is relying more and more on high bandwidth connections and higher end machines. Visual editor for example is a memory hog, so if you were connecting with a slow connection or computer, its not going to work very well. Additionally, much of Wikipedia's options don't work without have relatively new versions of your favorite browser.

I do like Wikiwand though. Is a very neat and clean look. It is an attractive front end to what Wikipedia could/should be. Or if not Wikipedia maybe Wikia so they can drop their ridiculous and ugly Wikia skin.

[Kiefer.Wolfowitz]

The left margin of Wikipedia wastes space with recruiting candy, trying to get new editors. It is obsessed with Wikipedia, which is not what readers want.
The left margin of WikiWand gives the hypertext outline of the article.

Wikipedia's default font is a sans serif font, which meets the need of optical character recognition (OCR) programs.
WikiWand's default font is a serif font, which is easier for human readers.

[HRIP7]

The image choice on WikiWand is quite hit-and-miss ... I looked up "frog", thinking there might be a nice picture of a colourful frog, and instead was greeted by a very large image of raw, bloody frog legs and other unidentifiable body parts on a metal dish.

[thekohser]

Ho! Ho! HO!
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_ta ... Foundation

TL;DR suck it bitches, we do what we want.

...someone to look at our special thing with a different view...

I thought Sue Gardner already paid Robert Harris and his daughter Dory Carr-Harris to do exactly that on Wikimedia Commons?

[HRIP7]

The Wikimedia Foundation has lifted Superprotect in the German Wikipedia. Announcement from Lila Tretikov here.

[HRIP7]

Diff.

[HRIP7]

Here is a translation of Lila Tretikov's and Erik Möller's statement:

To the editor community of the German-language Wikipedia:

We have had detailed discussions with many of you, as well as amongst ourselves here at the Wikimedia Foundation, about the current situation with the Media Viewer and project-wide JavaScript changes.

It was a difficult decision for us to restrict access to MediaWiki:Common.js. We regret that we missed opportunities to do our part to avoid a conflict that nobody wanted. On the other hand, we cannot fulfil our responsibilities as website operators if users arbitrarily disable software functions by changing the project-wide JavaScript code that is executed for all users.

We recognize that the use of Superprotect inadvertently created the impression that we do not trust the community. This is not the case, which is why we have now lifted page protection.

In doing so, we put our trust in all members of the editor community that you will work with us before making any changes to the project-wide JavaScript code. We ask you in particular to please refrain from changing the project-wide JavaScript code so as to disable the Media Viewer or set it to opt-in.

We pledge to you that we will address the technical issues concerning the Media Viewer in a global, open-ended consultation with the Wikimedia community, which will begin tomorrow. The Meta page for consultation will include details on the objectives, time frame and procedure; we will place a reference link here tomorrow, and will also support German-language participation.

Please cooperate constructively with us over this coming month to define a mode for better and closer cooperation in the work for our common goals.

Lila & Erik

[SB_Johnny]

Here is a translation of Lila Tretikov's and Erik Möller's statement:

To the editor community of the German-language Wikipedia:

We have had detailed discussions with many of you, as well as amongst ourselves here at the Wikimedia Foundation, about the current situation with the Media Viewer and project-wide JavaScript changes.

It was a difficult decision for us to restrict access to MediaWiki:Common.js. We regret that we missed opportunities to do our part to avoid a conflict that nobody wanted. On the other hand, we cannot fulfil our responsibilities as website operators if users arbitrarily disable software functions by changing the project-wide JavaScript code that is executed for all users.

We recognize that the use of Superprotect inadvertently created the impression that we do not trust the community. This is not the case, which is why we have now lifted page protection.

In doing so, we put our trust in all members of the editor community that you will work with us before making any changes to the project-wide JavaScript code. We ask you in particular to please refrain from changing the project-wide JavaScript code so as to disable the Media Viewer or set it to opt-in.

We pledge to you that we will address the technical issues concerning the Media Viewer in a global, open-ended consultation with the Wikimedia community, which will begin tomorrow. The Meta page for consultation will include details on the objectives, time frame and procedure; we will place a reference link here tomorrow, and will also support German-language participation.

Please cooperate constructively with us over this coming month to define a mode for better and closer cooperation in the work for our common goals.

Lila & Erik

In other words, "we'll trust you to do what we tell you to do as long as you do what we tell you to do."

Starting yet another "discussion" on meta is a good wiki-strategy. It's a case of whoever has the most time to waste will win the argument, and all the WMF side has to do to keep the endless cycle going is to pipe in with one or two comments a day, leaving the rest of the day open for doing whatever it is they were going to do anyway. I don't see the volunteers doing very well in this war of attrition.

[Zoloft]

I can translate that statement by Lila and Erik in three words: "Just the tip."

[HRIP7]

There is an official translation here:

Dear German Wikipedia community,
We’ve been talking a lot with many of you and at the WMF about the current situation regarding Media Viewer and site-wide JavaScript changes.

Restricting edits to MediaWiki:Common.js was a difficult decision for us. We regret that we missed opportunities to do our part in avoiding a conflict that no one wanted. At the same time, we cannot fulfill our responsibilities as the site operator when users take it upon themselves to disable functionality by editing site-wide JavaScript that is executed for all users.

We learned that the use of superprotection unintendedly created the impression that we don't trust the community. This is not the case, so we have therefore removed the restriction.

In doing so, we are investing our trust and goodwill in every community member that you will work together with us before making changes to site-wide JavaScript. And we are specifically asking you to not change site-wide JavaScript to deactivate Media Viewer or to make it opt-in.

Our commitment to you is to address open technical issues with Media Viewer based on a global community consultation process beginning tomorrow. The consultation page will address the scope, intent, and timelines of the consultation will be announced on all projects and will be open-ended. We will update here with the details when the page is live and will support German language participation.

We ask you to work with us in good faith in the upcoming month and through this effort define a better, closer way of working together in support of our common goals.

Sincerely, Lila & Erik

Comments to date.

[HRIP7]

Jimmy Wales has weighed in as well.

Some thoughts about MediaViewer, my Statement of Principles, and the community's relationship with the foundation

One of the key statements that has been made is that the Wikimedia Foundation is in violation of #4 of my well-known Statement of Principles (User:Jimbo Wales/Statement of principles) so I want to spend a little bit of time specifically discussing that issue.

Here is my original: "4. Any changes to the software must be gradual and reversible. We need to make sure that any changes contribute positively to the community, as ultimately determined by me, in full consultation with the community consensus."

And here is how it is stated today: "4. Any changes to the software must be gradual and reversible. We need to make sure that any changes contribute positively to the community, as ultimately determined by the Wikimedia Foundation, in full consultation with the community consensus."

I must say that I am surprised and pleased to see how well the principle has held up over time and how clearly it still expresses some important ideas.

It is worth noting first and foremost what it does not say. It does not say that software changes must be approved by community vote. It does not say that community consensus is the primary principle for deciding whether some feature should be implemented or not, but rather that changes contribute positively to the community, as decided by the Wikimedia Foundation. And finally it says that the Wikimedia Foundation should make that decision in full consultation with the community consensus.

What should that consultation look like? It should look a fair amount like what we have seen in the past few weeks but without the wheel-warring and drama. Remember that this feature, which can be changed easily, has already been improved to overcome sensible objections and resolve the sorts of issues that are normally caught by live deployments. I look forward to the Foundation's plan to have an incremental rollout process to reduce drama around this sort of improvement.

Here's a view of the future that I think is a disaster for the community: suppose we adopt as a new policy, which has never existed in any formal way, that every community votes (looking for majority levels of support) on every new feature and whether they want to turn it on or off by default. The result is that the software development gets even slower and we fall further behind than where we are today because it becomes impossible for the developers to have a clear view of how it works in all the different environments. The amount of effort that would need to go into addressing every feature variation on each of hundreds of wikis would be exponentially higher as each of them will needed to be identified, monitored, tested and coded.

And here is a view of the future that I think is fantastic for the community: the WMF invests a lot more resources in engineering and product including building a proper consultative process with the community, and introducing incremental roll-outs (to 1% of the editors, then 2%, then 5%, or similar) so that problems can be identified and fixed before we have a huge drama. In this vision we don't have a set of features that are voted on to be turned on and off, we have a dynamic and ongoing healthy conversation about how to improve things.

I have personally been frustrated in the past many times with the disastrous product roll-outs that we've seen (I am not talking about MV, but I'm sure we all remember Flagged Revisions and the Visual Editor). And I want that to change. By hiring Lila, we have committed to making that change and she's investing in building up capacity to get things done in a better way. And we in the community need to support that and call people out on some particularly unhelpful and false attitudes (boiled down to the essence: the WMF is against editors - there are many variants of this claim, all false).

Has the Foundation screwed up? Yeah, sure, lots of times. Has the community screwed up? Yeah, sure, lots of times. Is there a better way? Yes.

What I'm asking people to do is, as I used to say, "relax a notch or two." Let's calm things down for a couple of months. It seems that the Foundation is about to remove (or has just removed) the superprotection of a javascript file in German Wikipedia, and I beg the German Wikipedians to work to reduce tension by not implementing the controversial javascript hack again. And then let's have a real conversation about what improvements need to be made to the MediaViewer and expect that the Foundation will indeed make those improvements.

And then the more important task - let's talk about and help the Foundation design a sane process for community consultation on developing software. And let's not do this in the sense of a political battle or power struggle but rather "Assume Good Faith," and understand that software decisions made by committee or community vote is not a functional process (and indeed, has gotten us to the sorry state we are in today) but that equally, software created by developers who have a poor understanding of our real needs doesn't work either. Let's work on a better way that is both efficient in terms of getting software that works produced and effective in terms of meeting our real needs as editors.

Peace is the first step, so let's chill.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:32, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Wales has also posted as follows on Pete Forsyth's talk page:

Please check out my user talk page

I've posted an important statement there and its aimed very much at you on one key element: the plea to please relax a notch or two. I know you think you are helping by going around agitating for an open letter but I don't agree - and there is no rush. I'd like you to dial back the rhetoric because it looks from where I sit very much a case of WP:IDONTHEARYOU. Let's chill out and remember what we are here for - all of us - and it isn't to engage in useless internal bickering.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:41, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Reception in the German Wikipedia is less than enthusiastic.

[Randy from Boise]

In other words, "we'll trust you to do what we tell you to do as long as you do what we tell you to do."

Starting yet another "discussion" on meta is a good wiki-strategy. It's a case of whoever has the most time to waste will win the argument, and all the WMF side has to do to keep the endless cycle going is to pipe in with one or two comments a day, leaving the rest of the day open for doing whatever it is they were going to do anyway. I don't see the volunteers doing very well in this war of attrition.

While you are right that WMF wins on this issue, I think this was a "good loss" in that they will be very, very, very, very cautious of dumping an unready Flow on us.

To me that's what this was all about.

By the way, the revised versions of Media Viewer are getting worse, not better, from my perspective.

RfB

[Jim]

In other words, "we'll trust you to do what we tell you to do as long as you do what we tell you to do."

Starting yet another "discussion" on meta is a good wiki-strategy. It's a case of whoever has the most time to waste will win the argument, and all the WMF side has to do to keep the endless cycle going is to pipe in with one or two comments a day, leaving the rest of the day open for doing whatever it is they were going to do anyway. I don't see the volunteers doing very well in this war of attrition.

While you are right that WMF wins on this issue, I think this was a "good loss" in that they will be very, very, very, very cautious of dumping an unready Flow on us.

To me that's what this was all about.

By the way, the revised versions of Media Viewer are getting worse, not better, from my perspective.

RfB

Talking of perspective, I've mentioned elsewhere that with MV, all they are basically doing is replicating a fancy javascript image display widget - a concept implemented well already in a zillion places on the internet. They haven't managed to do that smoothly. They should have been able to provide something that caused the vast majority of people to just think "ok, that's different, but I like it", or "meh, makes no real difference to what I do, whether I like it or not".

With Flow it's a whole other ball game. It's huge, and changes the fundamentals of how the wikipedians' favourite playground (talk pages) works. More confrontation seems absolutely inevitable to me when that gets implemented. For such a massive change you need a receptive community, not one on full battle alert from previous skirmishes.

Long term lack of good practice has left the WMF at the bottom of a deep hole in this regard. They need to climb out, not keep digging.

[SB_Johnny]

What I'm asking people to do is, as I used to say, "relax a notch or two." Let's calm things down for a couple of months. It seems that the Foundation is about to remove (or has just removed) the superprotection of a javascript file in German Wikipedia, and I beg the German Wikipedians to work to reduce tension by not implementing the controversial javascript hack again. And then let's have a real conversation about what improvements need to be made to the MediaViewer and expect that the Foundation will indeed make those improvements.

Of course the actual issue isn't so much that it needs improving, but rather that people just don't want it at all because it's not an improvement. So rather than just saying "Okay, we'll turn it off and try to make a better version that is an improvement", Jimmy and the WMF instead demand that the volunteers work with them to make it better, while leaving the thing turned on.