Wikipedians and change

[Michaeldsuarez]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28technical%29#New_.22diff.22_view_is_horrible_and_illegible (permalink)

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AVillage_pump_%28technical%29&diff=491055593&oldid=491053596

The developers created a new diff color scheme in order to aid colorblind individuals, but the Wikipedians don't approve of the change. The same thing happened when the Wikimedia Usability Initiative created the Vector skin. The Vector skin moved the search bar to a position that increased useability, but the wiki-volk freaked and demanded that the changes be reverted.

Does this suggest that Wikipedians don't accept change? Do Wikipedians believe the the preferences of an established / entrenched few outweigh the useability of the many? Perhaps a similar reaction will occur once the WYSIWYG editor is finished and enabled by default.

[Kevin]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28technical%29#New_.22diff.22_view_is_horrible_and_illegible (permalink)

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AVillage_pump_%28technical%29&diff=491055593&oldid=491053596

The developers created a new diff color scheme in order to aid colorblind individuals, but the Wikipedians don't approve of the change. The same thing happened when the Wikimedia Usability Initiative created the Vector skin. The Vector skin moved the search bar to a position that increased useability, but the wiki-volk freaked and demanded that the changes be reverted.

Does this suggest that Wikipedians don't accept change? Do Wikipedians believe the the preferences of an established / entrenched few outweigh the useability of the many? Perhaps a similar reaction will occur once the WYSIWYG editor is finished and enabled by default.

Wikipedians unable to accept change! In other breaking news, the sun rose today.

[EricBarbour]

As I got done telling 2 other people today: Wikipedia nerds are so terrified of change, positive or negative, they would
rather tear Wikipedia down than allow changes. These are Aspies who jabber incoherently at each other on IRC, okay?

[Michaeldsuarez]

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:$wgShowUpdatedMarker

By default, pages on Special:Watchlist that one hasn't visited since the last change are bold. This setting has been set to "true" by default for years.

Of course, the English Wikipedia had their set to "false", and it was the only wiki that I know of that had $wgShowUpdatedMarker set to false. Encyclopedia Dramatica, Commons, dewiki, etc. have it set to true. I've found the bold titles useful on the MediaWiki websites that I use.

Recently, enwiki switched $wgShowUpdatedMarker to true due to the following discussion:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28proposals%29/Archive_83#Enable_.22Show_changes_since_last_visit.22_on_watchlist

Now there's a knee-jerk reaction:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28technical%29#Watchlist_-_bold_letter_article_titles.21 (permalink)

"How dare the developers mess with my beautiful, beautiful watchlist! I need my watchlist back to normal so I can obsess, stalk, revert, and dictate articles and discussions comfortably."