Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2020-04-26/Opinion



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  • An interesting text, thank you! I have shared it with some colleagues at the Foundation. Ijon (talk) 21:25, 28 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you very much for this. An ongoing objective for MobileFrontend is to get rid of it, or in other words phabricator:T158181. A while ago we wrote mw:Principles, building on Ward Cunningham's wiki design principles which are still valid nowadays.

    Interestingly, in recent months the WMF seems to be focusing more on the core features of the wiki, for instance Special:RecentChanges, and less on bells and whistles: maybe some long-neglected issues will be fixed, but there's also a potential for deeper damage if hybris emerges. (Or just poor allocation of resources: for instance the revision limit has been "temporarily" reduced from 5000 to 500 for months now. One would expect a 100+ M$/y org to be able to provide us a more performant database than in the past, but seems not.) Nemo 06:59, 29 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • I'd like to summarize, and briefly respond to, comments on this essay from elsewhere on the web. I'll try to add more as they come up.
    • Mike Linksvayer observes that it's more like three essays. This resonates; I found it challenging to find the proper scope for this essay. The three topics Mike identifies all overlap substantially, and I relished the opportunity to explore them all in one place. Editors Joseph Reagle and Jackie Koerner were very helpful in helping me modify the scope. I hope to go into more depth on various topic in the future.
    • Charles Matthews suggested various related ideas.
    • Adam Hyde (founder of FLOSS Manuals etc.) remarked on the "DIY" look of MediaWiki software, compares it to the punk rock aesthetic, and thinks some might feel more inclined to touch and interact with it than they would in a more polished interface. -Pete Forsyth (talk) 02:04, 1 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]