[Foundation-l] Moving towards a more usable MediaWiki

Tue Dec 2 16:12:57 UTC 2008

On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 10:12 AM, Gerard Meijssen
<gerard.meijssen at gmail.com>wrote:

> Hoi,
> There are indeed issues with the core MediaWiki software. There is existing
> software that is build as an extension. The basic CreatePage extension can
> easily be implemented, it does require no templates or buttons. These are
> separate opportunities. Opportunities that take a bit more consideration.
>

Indeed. I am not opposed to extensions that improve on core ideas, as long
as they're thoroughly tested and proven to have a noticeable improvement in
userland.

>
> When we are to learn what new functionality improves our core software, it
> makes sense to first experience the results by tweaking the system with
> extensions. When we are confident of the results, we can progress and
> integrate it in the core.

Not necessarily. It comes back to my original statement: is it a problem
with
how we do things nor, or is this an alternate way some people might
like/need?
If it's the former, then we most certainly need to fix it in core. However,
there
is always the opportunity for the latter. Some things just shouldn't be in
the
core software, because it has a very specific user-case (even if that
use-case
is WM-wide), and we don't want to burden those who lack these specific
scenarios but extra features (and associated configuration).

>
>
> When you consider changes to the usability, you do not fix bugs. The system
> is not buggy in the sense that it works as per the specification. The issue
> is that usability can only be improved with a different specification.
> There
> will be projects who will be eager to experiment with the UNICEF
> extensions.
> The Swahili wikipedia would be an obvious choice because they have already
> localised the eight messages of the CreatePage extension.
> Thanks,
>      GerardM
>

Yes and no. Usability issues can most certainly be bugs. If we have a page
like
the upload form that is poorly implemented and creates a barrier to
contribution,
then we need to fix it. Same thing for image alt text, language support, and

fallback support for non-traditional browsers. This kind of thing needs to
be
supported in core and issues with it need to be fixed. Extensions add
functionality,
they shouldn't be fixing current functionality problems.

-Chad