[Foundation-l] Call for a moratorium on all new software developments

Mon Sep 6 10:33:43 UTC 2010

During the past few years, the new softwares of the Wikimedia
Foundations  have been developped in a too much anarchic way.

* They are sometimes implemented as a whim of a few WMF big wheels,
without consulting the user communities.

* We are never shown specifications defining the goals of the planned
softwares, which makes me doubt such specifications are ever written.
With specifications being written and published, problems could be
talked in a proactive way.

A few problems :

* The developpers have enabled for every Admin of the French
Wikipedia, the possibility to mask (and exert acts of censorship)
without needing to be an oversighter (1) Which means that the policy
page at [[:fr:Wikipédia:Masqueur d'adresses IP]] (more or less the
same as [[:en:Wikipedia:Oversight]]) is a joke. Every single admin has
virtually the same power as an oversighter.

* The pdf tool is not fulfilling the licenses of images imported from
Flickr. This is typically a tool enabled on all projects without
consulting with the communities. That tool should be disabled at once
from all project, until it is repaired (which might mean redevelopped
from scratch). (2)

Conclusion : Because more software means more harm, I call for a
moratorium (1 year? 6 months ?) on all new software developpements.
During that time the developpers should be allowed to repair only
obvious and urgent bugs.

(1) A statement by a French admin saying that such acts are currently
performed by simple admins :
http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikip%C3%A9dia%3ABulletin_des_administrateurs%2F2010%2FSemaine_36&action=historysubmit&diff=56843997&oldid=56843680

(2) Example provided here :
http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikip%C3%A9dia%3ALe_Bistro%2F4_septembre_2010&action=historysubmit&diff=56786685&oldid=56786681