[Foundation-l] Vector, a year after

Tue Apr 5 10:41:38 UTC 2011

2011/4/4 Rodan Bury <bury.rodan at gmail.com>:
> As for the quantitative analysis, the one made during the beta testing of
> Vector was detailed. It clearly showed that most users - and especially
> newbies - preferred Vector over Monobook (retention rates of 70 - 80 % and
> more).

It means that for most people Vector wasn't worse than Monobook; it
doesn't necessarily mean that it was significantly better. Putting a
lot of money and volunteer effort into a Big Project is supposed to
create something *better* than the current thing.

That's the problem with grants, i guess. If a rich - and certainly
well-meaning - foundation invests money in a Big Project that doesn't
hurt free knowledge, but doesn't advance it too much either, it's not
a big problem by itself. But it becomes a problem when it has a hidden
cost in the form of work that volunteers in all the wikis have to do
to adjust their home sites to that Big Project. If this work has real
results, such as making the articles significantly easier to edit or
bringing a lot of new editors, then this is perfectly justified. But
if it's just a nice new skin that doesn't really change anything
significant, then it's kinda frustrating.

--
Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
http://aharoni.wordpress.com
"We're living in pieces,
 I want to live in peace." - T. Moore