Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-05-27/News and notes


 * While I like WMF stuff to be open, I understand why there may be reticence to committing to publish a SWOT analysis. The potential for existential, or at least very costly, threats, means that publication could potentially fall foul of the equivalent of WP:BEANS.  All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:02, 29 May 2015 (UTC).


 * It's confusing that op-ed style commentary is mixed in with an otherwise straight news story. Who exactly is saying that this is "alarming"? The Signpost, unnamed community members, or User:Resident Mario? Kaldari (talk) 21:08, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia's "outdated" look
Maybe I'm a minority of one, but I find these constant complaints about Wikipedia's interface as evidence of missing the entire point of what this website is attempting to accomplish. I'm not defending the interface unreservedly -- there are things I don't like about it, & the fonts that Raureif are using are attractive. But when I look at various suggested "improvements", I end up wondering if they will really improve how every article will look, or just certain ones. And I wonder if all of those shiny bells & whistles come at the cost of using only certain versions of certain browsers & add-ons (e.g., specific versions & releases of Java, Flash, Javascript, etc.) leaving the rest of us with a blank page that tells us we need to upgrade something in our computer we shouldn't really need to. So when all is said & done, the interface works, & it really is the least worst possible interface. It allows a lot of people who have been donating our time, money, & effort at building Wikipedia to do the job without being distracted about whether the software on our computers is good enough. We can focus on getting the facts & citations right without worrying if the picture selected for the article is edgy enough. (Or whatever is the current fad in graphic design right now.) And that's the point of Wikipedia -- we're creating the content. We're translating the names, dates, facts & opinions from its current print form into a digital form that our readers can build with. Or as one article the folks at Raureif linked to put it, if someone stumbles upon Wikipedia and thinks "Urgh, it's so ugly!" that person wasn't using it. He was looking at it. This doesn't mean people shouldn't experiment with the interface, & try to make it better; they just need to keep two things in mind before they talk about "improving" it. The first is that they shouldn't have their panties bunched up for Wikipedians not caring about the interface as much as they do; again, we're creating content, God dammit. Second, if they come up with a truly better interface that allows people to better extract the information, they should be prepared to share it with the community that built Wikipedia for the same price they paid for the content; no one is forcing them to use what we've given them for free, God dammit. -- llywrch (talk) 07:29, 30 May 2015 (UTC)


 * You will enjoy this essay, which is linked from Unsolicited redesigns. I remember one proponent of an inadequate redesign talking about how ordinary Internet users are "design-starved" ... um, no - David Gerard (talk) 09:19, 30 May 2015 (UTC)
 * David, did you happen to follow the sole link in my comment, & from which I drew a close paraphrase? -- llywrch (talk) 17:24, 30 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Well ... I was correct you'd enjoy it! *cough* - David Gerard (talk) 16:26, 1 June 2015 (UTC)


 * 2015 main page redesign proposal/draft/Guy Macon --Guy Macon (talk) 09:52, 31 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Guy, your suggestion (linked) has stripped the overcrowded main page design of all of its redundant and low-value nonsense. All it needs is a modern visual design, preferably based on mouse-hovering as long as accessibility is not an issue with that. Then we'd be taken seriously. --Tony1 (talk) 15:34, 31 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Low-bandwidth access is for the mobile site. The regular site needs to be as full-featured as possible in a modern web setting, and so this is the wrong direction to be going in as a flagship. The point is possibly moot: the community long ago demonstrated an incapacity for making design choices, for one, and, colloquially, traffic is more and more being led away from the (terrible, terrible) main page these days. Res Mar 15:48, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Priorities
"Engineering makes up the bulk of the WMF's expenditure; there is good reason for this, since surveys again and again show that stakeholders believe this should be at the core of the Foundation's purpose."

Well, here's my view on the subject. In a word, Wikimedia's biggest issues are social, and these can't be solved with technical solutions. --NaBUru38 (talk) 01:20, 2 June 2015 (UTC)