Changes in colors of user interface
Locked
12
12
Changes in colors of user interface
 
|
Hey,
With the deployment of 1.29.0-wmf.5 which just finished on all wikis, several changes were made in user interface colors. * Gray boxes (TOC, Wikitables, catlinks, thumbnails, elements in history etc.) has changed from #f9f9f9 as background to #f8f9fa and #aaa as border to #a2a9b1. [1] This change is almost not noticeable but in order to keep consistency between all elements of a wiki page, change such usages in your Mediawiki:Common.css (for example for infoboxes). * Search results border and background colors also changed and this one is also not noticeable. [2] * "You have new message in your talk page" notification color has changed from #f9c557 to #fc3 (yellow). [3] This change is noticeable. These all are parts of works ongoing by WMF designers and engineers to have a standard UI [4] using standard colors picked from Wikimedia color palette. [5] Using consistent colors helps users have better experience and strengthen branding. Also these colors have passed WCAG standard for accessibility (for color blind people). Lots have been done already. Such as content translation [6] wikipedia.org portal [7] [8], mobile frontend [9], Echo email notification [10], Deffered changes [11] ORES review tool [12], disambig icon [13] [14], WMF wiki main page [15] and a lot more. So I recommend you to use the color palette [5] as much as possible. I must explicitly note that I did a little and I don't think I can talk on behalf of UI-standardization team :) [1]: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/324534 [2]: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/324549 [3]: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/324161 [4]: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/tag/ui-standardization [5]: Wikimedia color palette: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/M82 [6]: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/321609 [7]: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/322831 [8]: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/325057 [9]: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/317746 [10]: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/323554 [11]: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/323558 [12]: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/320341 [13]: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Disambig.svg [14]: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Disambig_gray.svg [15]: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home Best _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list [hidden email] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l |
|
|
Hi Amir,
Were these changes discussed in advance with Wikimedia communities on mailing lists, village pumps, etc? I am thinking particularly of template designers and maintainers, who may have coordinated their work with the previous color scheme. It seems to me that Wikimedians should be given plenty of notice that color changes like these are proposed, and should be given ample opportunity to comment on them before they are rolled out, but this is the first that I recall hearing of these changes. I would go so far as to say that there should be an RfC before making changes like this to community wikis. Also, it seems to me that there should be a period of a few weeks between the commitment to make a change like this and the implementation of a change so that Wikimedians whose work is affected have an opportunity to prepare for changes. I'm not going to push for a rollback of this change unless I hear a lot of community voices saying that this particular set of changes is a problem, but I would hope that changes like this would be communicated and discussed widely in the future and that an RfC would be undertaken before making these kinds of changes to community wikis. Pine On Thu, Dec 8, 2016 at 4:45 PM, Amir Ladsgroup <[hidden email]> wrote: > Hey, > With the deployment of 1.29.0-wmf.5 which just finished on all wikis, > several changes were made in user interface colors. > * Gray boxes (TOC, Wikitables, catlinks, thumbnails, elements in history > etc.) has changed from #f9f9f9 as background to #f8f9fa and #aaa as border > to #a2a9b1. [1] This change is almost not noticeable but in order to keep > consistency between all elements of a wiki page, change such usages in your > Mediawiki:Common.css (for example for infoboxes). > * Search results border and background colors also changed and this one is > also not noticeable. [2] > * "You have new message in your talk page" notification color has changed > from #f9c557 to #fc3 (yellow). [3] This change is noticeable. > > These all are parts of works ongoing by WMF designers and engineers to have > a standard UI [4] using standard colors picked from Wikimedia color > palette. [5] > > Using consistent colors helps users have better experience and strengthen > branding. Also these colors have passed WCAG standard for accessibility > (for color blind people). Lots have been done already. Such as content > translation [6] wikipedia.org portal [7] [8], mobile frontend [9], Echo > email notification [10], Deffered changes [11] ORES review tool [12], > disambig icon [13] [14], WMF wiki main page [15] and a lot more. > > So I recommend you to use the color palette [5] as much as possible. > > I must explicitly note that I did a little and I don't think I can talk on > behalf of UI-standardization team :) > > [1]: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/324534 > [2]: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/324549 > [3]: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/324161 > [4]: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/tag/ui-standardization > [5]: Wikimedia color palette: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/M82 > [6]: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/321609 > [7]: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/322831 > [8]: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/325057 > [9]: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/317746 > [10]: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/323554 > [11]: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/323558 > [12]: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/320341 > [13]: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Disambig.svg > [14]: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Disambig_gray.svg > [15]: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home > > Best > _______________________________________________ > Wikitech-l mailing list > [hidden email] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l Wikitech-l mailing list [hidden email] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l |
Re: Changes in colors of user interface
|
|
Hey,
If a community dislikes a change they can instantly override it using mediawiki:common.css. In that case, no one would forces them to change it back. But these changes are too small to notice and even smaller to dislike. For example no one is trying to change blue to red, But we changed a certain shade of blue to another shade that you are more familiar with and seen in other places. That's why for small changes we never got negative feedback. We are doing this to give users better experience by using familiar colors. It's really hard to see any objections overall. Best On Fri, Dec 9, 2016 at 10:03 AM Pine W <[hidden email]> wrote: > Hi Amir, > > Were these changes discussed in advance with Wikimedia communities on > mailing lists, village pumps, etc? I am thinking particularly of template > designers and maintainers, who may have coordinated their work with the > previous color scheme. It seems to me that Wikimedians should be given > plenty of notice that color changes like these are proposed, and should be > given ample opportunity to comment on them before they are rolled out, but > this is the first that I recall hearing of these changes. I would go so far > as to say that there should be an RfC before making changes like this to > community wikis. > > Also, it seems to me that there should be a period of a few weeks between > the commitment to make a change like this and the implementation of a > change so that Wikimedians whose work is affected have an opportunity to > prepare for changes. > > I'm not going to push for a rollback of this change unless I hear a lot of > community voices saying that this particular set of changes is a problem, > but I would hope that changes like this would be communicated and discussed > widely in the future and that an RfC would be undertaken before making > these kinds of changes to community wikis. > > Pine > > > On Thu, Dec 8, 2016 at 4:45 PM, Amir Ladsgroup <[hidden email]> > wrote: > > > Hey, > > With the deployment of 1.29.0-wmf.5 which just finished on all wikis, > > several changes were made in user interface colors. > > * Gray boxes (TOC, Wikitables, catlinks, thumbnails, elements in history > > etc.) has changed from #f9f9f9 as background to #f8f9fa and #aaa as > border > > to #a2a9b1. [1] This change is almost not noticeable but in order to keep > > consistency between all elements of a wiki page, change such usages in > your > > Mediawiki:Common.css (for example for infoboxes). > > * Search results border and background colors also changed and this one > is > > also not noticeable. [2] > > * "You have new message in your talk page" notification color has changed > > from #f9c557 to #fc3 (yellow). [3] This change is noticeable. > > > > These all are parts of works ongoing by WMF designers and engineers to > have > > a standard UI [4] using standard colors picked from Wikimedia color > > palette. [5] > > > > Using consistent colors helps users have better experience and strengthen > > branding. Also these colors have passed WCAG standard for accessibility > > (for color blind people). Lots have been done already. Such as content > > translation [6] wikipedia.org portal [7] [8], mobile frontend [9], Echo > > email notification [10], Deffered changes [11] ORES review tool [12], > > disambig icon [13] [14], WMF wiki main page [15] and a lot more. > > > > So I recommend you to use the color palette [5] as much as possible. > > > > I must explicitly note that I did a little and I don't think I can talk > on > > behalf of UI-standardization team :) > > > > [1]: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/324534 > > [2]: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/324549 > > [3]: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/324161 > > [4]: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/tag/ui-standardization > > [5]: Wikimedia color palette: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/M82 > > [6]: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/321609 > > [7]: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/322831 > > [8]: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/325057 > > [9]: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/317746 > > [10]: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/323554 > > [11]: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/323558 > > [12]: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/320341 > > [13]: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Disambig.svg > > [14]: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Disambig_gray.svg > > [15]: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home > > > > Best > > _______________________________________________ > > Wikitech-l mailing list > > [hidden email] > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l > _______________________________________________ > Wikitech-l mailing list > [hidden email] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l Wikitech-l mailing list [hidden email] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l |
|
|
2016-12-09 10:53 GMT+02:00 Amir Ladsgroup <[hidden email]>:
> But these changes are too small to notice and even smaller to dislike. Amir, I believe you've been a wikimedian for too long to really believe that. No change is to small to be disliked by one or more people! >> It seems to me that Wikimedians should be given >> plenty of notice that color changes like these are proposed, and should be >> given ample opportunity to comment on them before they are rolled out, but >> this is the first that I recall hearing of these changes. I would go so far >> as to say that there should be an RfC before making changes like this to >> community wikis. Totally agree. It's not a question of how small/large such a change is, it's a question of collaboration and mutual respect. Which was lacking, yet again :( Some communities will miss these changes completely just because they had already overridden the old values in Common.css, most likely for historical reasons. A heads-up would have allowed them to decide on whether to go with the upstream changes or stick with the current layout. I call again on the staff and volunteers that work on the frontend to be announce changes well ahead of time and as widely as possible. Strainu _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list [hidden email] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l |
Re: Changes in colors of user interface
|
|
On Fri, 2016-12-09 at 23:56 +0200, Strainu wrote:
> Totally agree. It's not a question of how small/large such a change > is, it's a question of collaboration and mutual respect. Which was > lacking, yet again :( While I'm not sure if "UI Standardization" is defined as a product in WMF, I'd hope that in the future https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Technical_Collaboration_Guideline will generally be helpful (which welcomes feedback). The project's workboard can be found at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/tag/ui-standardization/ and it is linked from https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_User_Interface > Some communities will miss these changes completely just because they > had already overridden the old values in Common.css, most likely for > historical reasons. A heads-up would have allowed them to decide on > whether to go with the upstream changes or stick with the current > layout. Regarding a heads-up, would it have helped to have these changes listed in https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2016/49 ? Cheers, andre -- Andre Klapper | Wikimedia Bugwrangler http://blogs.gnome.org/aklapper/ _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list [hidden email] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l |
|
|
In reply to this post by Amir Sarabadani-2
Hi Amir,
While I think that you are well-intentioned, you may be underestimating the effects of small changes that are done on a large scale. I believe that color changes to the UI are not urgent changes, and there is every reason to do widespread communication about proposed changes (*not* the week that changes are rolling out, but instead two to three months in advance), to provide opportunity for discussion, and to provide a buffer time period between the finalization of the decision and the execution of the change. Perhaps an organizational change that would be helpful here is assigning a Community Liaison to the the WMF Design team to help that team with communications and rollout plans. Also, perhaps it would help my project if I had a meeting with someone from the WMF Design team to get a better sense of what UI changes to expect over the next 24 months. I am working on help videos for Wikimedia content wikis, and I would like those videos to reflect the real-world environment to the extent possible. Is there a particular person on the Design team that you would recommend that I contact about setting up a meeting? Thanks, Pine On Fri, Dec 9, 2016 at 12:53 AM, Amir Ladsgroup <[hidden email]> wrote: > Hey, > If a community dislikes a change they can instantly override it using > mediawiki:common.css. In that case, no one would forces them to change it > back. > > But these changes are too small to notice and even smaller to dislike. For > example no one is trying to change blue to red, But we changed a certain > shade of blue to another shade that you are more familiar with and seen in > other places. That's why for small changes we never got negative feedback. > We are doing this to give users better experience by using familiar colors. > It's really hard to see any objections overall. > > Best > > On Fri, Dec 9, 2016 at 10:03 AM Pine W <[hidden email]> wrote: > > > Hi Amir, > > > > Were these changes discussed in advance with Wikimedia communities on > > mailing lists, village pumps, etc? I am thinking particularly of template > > designers and maintainers, who may have coordinated their work with the > > previous color scheme. It seems to me that Wikimedians should be given > > plenty of notice that color changes like these are proposed, and should > be > > given ample opportunity to comment on them before they are rolled out, > but > > this is the first that I recall hearing of these changes. I would go so > far > > as to say that there should be an RfC before making changes like this to > > community wikis. > > > > Also, it seems to me that there should be a period of a few weeks between > > the commitment to make a change like this and the implementation of a > > change so that Wikimedians whose work is affected have an opportunity to > > prepare for changes. > > > > I'm not going to push for a rollback of this change unless I hear a lot > of > > community voices saying that this particular set of changes is a problem, > > but I would hope that changes like this would be communicated and > discussed > > widely in the future and that an RfC would be undertaken before making > > these kinds of changes to community wikis. > > > > Pine > > > > > > On Thu, Dec 8, 2016 at 4:45 PM, Amir Ladsgroup <[hidden email]> > > wrote: > > > > > Hey, > > > With the deployment of 1.29.0-wmf.5 which just finished on all wikis, > > > several changes were made in user interface colors. > > > * Gray boxes (TOC, Wikitables, catlinks, thumbnails, elements in > history > > > etc.) has changed from #f9f9f9 as background to #f8f9fa and #aaa as > > border > > > to #a2a9b1. [1] This change is almost not noticeable but in order to > keep > > > consistency between all elements of a wiki page, change such usages in > > your > > > Mediawiki:Common.css (for example for infoboxes). > > > * Search results border and background colors also changed and this one > > is > > > also not noticeable. [2] > > > * "You have new message in your talk page" notification color has > changed > > > from #f9c557 to #fc3 (yellow). [3] This change is noticeable. > > > > > > These all are parts of works ongoing by WMF designers and engineers to > > have > > > a standard UI [4] using standard colors picked from Wikimedia color > > > palette. [5] > > > > > > Using consistent colors helps users have better experience and > strengthen > > > branding. Also these colors have passed WCAG standard for accessibility > > > (for color blind people). Lots have been done already. Such as content > > > translation [6] wikipedia.org portal [7] [8], mobile frontend [9], > Echo > > > email notification [10], Deffered changes [11] ORES review tool [12], > > > disambig icon [13] [14], WMF wiki main page [15] and a lot more. > > > > > > So I recommend you to use the color palette [5] as much as possible. > > > > > > I must explicitly note that I did a little and I don't think I can talk > > on > > > behalf of UI-standardization team :) > > > > > > [1]: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/324534 > > > [2]: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/324549 > > > [3]: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/324161 > > > [4]: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/tag/ui-standardization > > > [5]: Wikimedia color palette: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/M82 > > > [6]: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/321609 > > > [7]: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/322831 > > > [8]: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/325057 > > > [9]: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/317746 > > > [10]: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/323554 > > > [11]: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/323558 > > > [12]: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/320341 > > > [13]: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Disambig.svg > > > [14]: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Disambig_gray.svg > > > [15]: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home > > > > > > Best > > > _______________________________________________ > > > Wikitech-l mailing list > > > [hidden email] > > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l > > _______________________________________________ > > Wikitech-l mailing list > > [hidden email] > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l > _______________________________________________ > Wikitech-l mailing list > [hidden email] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l > Wikitech-l mailing list [hidden email] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l |
|
|
In reply to this post by Strainu
Hi,
On 12/09/2016 01:56 PM, Strainu wrote: > 2016-12-09 10:53 GMT+02:00 Amir Ladsgroup <[hidden email]>: >> But these changes are too small to notice and even smaller to dislike. > > Amir, I believe you've been a wikimedian for too long to really > believe that. No change is to small to be disliked by one or more > people! <https://xkcd.com/1770/> seems pretty timely! -- Legoktm _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list [hidden email] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l |
Re: Changes in colors of user interface
|
|
Hi!
> <https://xkcd.com/1770/> seems pretty timely! Or this one: https://xkcd.com/1172/ :) -- Stas Malyshev [hidden email] _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list [hidden email] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l |
|
|
While I appreciate the attempt to be funny, I am not amused in this case.
Surprise UI changes could, for example, result in thousands of dollars' worth of instructional videos becoming instantly out of sync with the real-world user experience. Also, users who may have spent considerable time perfecting their templates may be surprised to find that they need to make changes to keep the templates in sync with other changes to the UI. The problem isn't so much that the UI was changed, as that it was changed without notice and consultation. This isn't funny. Pine On Fri, Dec 9, 2016 at 5:07 PM, Stas Malyshev <[hidden email]> wrote: > Hi! > > > <https://xkcd.com/1770/> seems pretty timely! > > Or this one: > https://xkcd.com/1172/ :) > > -- > Stas Malyshev > [hidden email] > > _______________________________________________ > Wikitech-l mailing list > [hidden email] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l > Wikitech-l mailing list [hidden email] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l |
|
|
Hi,
On 12/09/2016 05:25 PM, Pine W wrote: > While I appreciate the attempt to be funny, I am not amused in this case. > Surprise UI changes could, for example, result in thousands of dollars' > worth of instructional videos becoming instantly out of sync with the > real-world user experience. Also, users who may have spent considerable > time perfecting their templates may be surprised to find that they need to > make changes to keep the templates in sync with other changes to the UI. > The problem isn't so much that the UI was changed, as that it was changed > without notice and consultation. This isn't funny. Well, I was specifically responding to Strainu's comment that "No change is to small to be disliked by one or more people!" which seemed to be in jest too. But I think you're significantly over-exaggerating the costs of this UI change, and changes in general. MediaWiki's UI changes literally every day when localization messages are updated, reworded, or added. Special pages are re-organized to be made more intuitive, toolbars re-arranged, etc. If you're making instructional videos, colors *barely* changing seem like the least of your problems in terms of becoming out of date. The VisualEditor project has a script that automatically generates localized screenshots of the user interface so the user manual stays up to date, I don't know if any solution has been worked out for videos yet. -- Legoktm _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list [hidden email] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l |
Re: Changes in colors of user interface
|
|
Pine, please chill for once.
On Fri, Dec 9, 2016 at 5:40 PM Legoktm <[hidden email]> wrote: > Hi, > > On 12/09/2016 05:25 PM, Pine W wrote: > > While I appreciate the attempt to be funny, I am not amused in this case. > > Surprise UI changes could, for example, result in thousands of dollars' > > worth of instructional videos becoming instantly out of sync with the > > real-world user experience. Also, users who may have spent considerable > > time perfecting their templates may be surprised to find that they need > to > > make changes to keep the templates in sync with other changes to the UI. > > The problem isn't so much that the UI was changed, as that it was changed > > without notice and consultation. This isn't funny. > > Well, I was specifically responding to Strainu's comment that "No change > is to small to be disliked by one or more people!" which seemed to be in > jest too. > > But I think you're significantly over-exaggerating the costs of this UI > change, and changes in general. MediaWiki's UI changes literally every > day when localization messages are updated, reworded, or added. Special > pages are re-organized to be made more intuitive, toolbars re-arranged, > etc. If you're making instructional videos, colors *barely* changing > seem like the least of your problems in terms of becoming out of date. > The VisualEditor project has a script that automatically generates > localized screenshots of the user interface so the user manual stays up > to date, I don't know if any solution has been worked out for videos yet. > > -- Legoktm > > _______________________________________________ > Wikitech-l mailing list > [hidden email] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l Wikitech-l mailing list [hidden email] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l |
Re: Changes in colors of user interface
|
|
May I just say if the time ever comes where MediaWiki developers have to
submit an RfC, coordinate with local wikis of numerous different languages, and wait weeks for community feedback and consensus for minor UI color changes, then all development would have been brought to a halt. It is that kind of bikeshedding and red-tape that often makes enterprise software development so cumbersome and loathed. Honestly, I don't even think this change needs to be announced. If wikis are overriding their own colors using common.css, then it is their due diligence to make sure their custom unsupported code keeps up to date with the base MediaWiki software. *-- * Regards, *Tyler Romeo* 0x405d34a7c86b42df https://parent5446.nyc On Fri, Dec 9, 2016 at 9:32 PM, Steven Walling <[hidden email]> wrote: > Pine, please chill for once. > On Fri, Dec 9, 2016 at 5:40 PM Legoktm <[hidden email]> > wrote: > > > Hi, > > > > On 12/09/2016 05:25 PM, Pine W wrote: > > > While I appreciate the attempt to be funny, I am not amused in this > case. > > > Surprise UI changes could, for example, result in thousands of dollars' > > > worth of instructional videos becoming instantly out of sync with the > > > real-world user experience. Also, users who may have spent considerable > > > time perfecting their templates may be surprised to find that they need > > to > > > make changes to keep the templates in sync with other changes to the > UI. > > > The problem isn't so much that the UI was changed, as that it was > changed > > > without notice and consultation. This isn't funny. > > > > Well, I was specifically responding to Strainu's comment that "No change > > is to small to be disliked by one or more people!" which seemed to be in > > jest too. > > > > But I think you're significantly over-exaggerating the costs of this UI > > change, and changes in general. MediaWiki's UI changes literally every > > day when localization messages are updated, reworded, or added. Special > > pages are re-organized to be made more intuitive, toolbars re-arranged, > > etc. If you're making instructional videos, colors *barely* changing > > seem like the least of your problems in terms of becoming out of date. > > The VisualEditor project has a script that automatically generates > > localized screenshots of the user interface so the user manual stays up > > to date, I don't know if any solution has been worked out for videos yet. > > > > -- Legoktm > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Wikitech-l mailing list > > [hidden email] > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l > _______________________________________________ > Wikitech-l mailing list > [hidden email] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l > Wikitech-l mailing list [hidden email] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l |
|
|
In reply to this post by Amir Sarabadani-2
2016-12-09 1:45 GMT+01:00 Amir Ladsgroup <[hidden email]>:
> I must explicitly note that I did a little and I don't think I can talk on > behalf of UI-standardization team :) > I think this sentence might have the wrong colour shade, thus it avoided the focus of mind of some folks. That's why poor Amir now gets all the complaints, but to punish the messenger of bad news is so ancient that we can find examples in earliest mythologies. So is it worth to recolour it together? -- Bináris _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list [hidden email] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l |
Re: Changes in colors of user interface
|
|
For reference, these are the changes being discussed:
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/F5022813 1) Significantly larger changes than this are happening all the time (the OOUI-ification of old forms, for example), without anyone noticing, so it's pretty clear people are reacting to the announcement here and not the actual change. There is nothing wrong with not paying attention to something well outside your work area, and people should not be excluded from a discussion topic just because they are new (or casual) to it, but please consider how it creates an unhealthy community dynamic when people are criticized for announcing changes which would otherwise go unnoticed. There are already too many developers who avoid this list because they find it too stressful or time-consuming. One of the costs of transparency and open coordination is that discussions can get easily overwhelmed by a bunch of random people with strong principles but relatively little idea of what's going on (that's why wikis are so strict about canvassing, for example); it's a good mental habit to ask "would I have gotten involved in this discussion eventually even if it wasn't announced in a mailing list?", and if the answer is no, consider just moving on. 2) There was once a project to create a free encyclopedia, where every change had to be discussed and agreed on with half a dozen groups of stakeholders. It was called Nupedia; it produced a hundred articles in three years, while its offshoot Wikipedia did well over a hundred thousand. It probably does not take a thousand times longer to discuss an article with various gatekeepers than it takes to write it. But it's sufficiently demotivating that people won't even try; instead they find a project where their contributions are welcome and not buried in red tape. Software development is not magically exempt from the same coordination costs that affect article writing. Please be mindful of unintentionally creating an unwelcoming environment. It's not fundamentally different with staff members, either. They have more time, but that time is bought with donor money, which needs to be spent responsibly. Designers spending their time videoconferencing with every interested user on whether they plan to change the shade of the new message bar to a slightly different yellow some time in the next two years is probably not what most donors have in mind when they support the movement. 3) When you are asking people to do more early planning and announcement and discussion, you are asking them to do significantly more work. It's not a free lunch; they need to cancel some tasks they would otherwise have been able to do, and spend time writing emails and getting translations and setting up discussions instead. More discussion means less features. Sometimes that's a reasonable request; sometimes not. Please consider which one it is, before asking. This time it falls squarely into "unreasonable", I think. Exactly what would an early announcement achieve? Delay producing the videos by half a year just to make sure the brightness of the ToC border is not 5% off? Or is "discussion" an euphemism for "veto power" and we should keep our website less accessible to readers with visual impairments so that the tutorial video colors are accurate? Documentation decays; it's a sad fact of life. Developers are acutely aware of that, since they need to produce and maintain a lot of it. No one likes it, but there is no reasonable way to prevent it. Halting software development so that documentation can stay up to date is certainly not one. 4) On a more constructive note, there *is* a reasonable way to reduce template maintenance burden: make LESS available to template editors so that variables such as "ToC border color" can be shared between MediaWiki and userland code. I filed T152832 about that. _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list [hidden email] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l |
Re: Changes in colors of user interface
|
|
On Sat, Dec 10, 2016 at 12:37 PM Gergo Tisza <[hidden email]> wrote:
> For reference, these are the changes being discussed: > https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/F5022813 > > It returns permission error to me <snip> _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list [hidden email] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l |
Re: Changes in colors of user interface
|
|
In reply to this post by Gergo Tisza
On 10 December 2016 at 19:07, Gergo Tisza <[hidden email]> wrote:
> For reference, these are the changes being discussed: > https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/F5022813 Is there any reason this is being discussed on a File compared to a task? Is there any reason security has been changed on this file? (It's not a security or a internal staff matter etc) _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list [hidden email] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l |
Re: Changes in colors of user interface
|
|
In reply to this post by Amir Sarabadani-2
On Sat, Dec 10, 2016 at 1:17 AM, Amir Ladsgroup <[hidden email]> wrote:
> It returns permission error to me > Uh, fixed. Looks like Phabricator keeps files private as long as they are not associated to any task. _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list [hidden email] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l |
|
|
In reply to this post by Gergo Tisza
2016-12-10 11:07 GMT+02:00 Gergo Tisza <[hidden email]>:
> For reference, these are the changes being discussed: > https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/F5022813 > > > 1) Significantly larger changes than this are happening all the time (the > OOUI-ification of old forms, for example), without anyone noticing, Agreed. However, these changes do not apply to millions of articles. It's a question of scale and visibility. > it's pretty clear people are reacting to the announcement here and not the > actual change. That's one way to put it. I would rather say that we reacted to yet another slip-up in communication from the Foundation. Why is it so hard for you guys to push the information to wikis? > > There is nothing wrong with not paying attention to something well outside > your work area, and people should not be excluded from a discussion topic > just because they are new (or casual) to it, but please consider how it > creates an unhealthy community dynamic when people are criticized for > announcing changes which would otherwise go unnoticed. I don't think an RFC was needed, but: 1. an announcement on this list with a phabricator number would have been nice 2. an announcement *on wiki, before the deployment* was mandatory. The rest of your mail does not seem related to this particular change, so I'll respond separately. 2016-12-10 1:43 GMT+02:00 Andre Klapper <[hidden email]>: > Regarding a heads-up, would it have helped to have these changes listed > in https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2016/49 ? Yes, with a follow-up in /50. Do note that the text in /50 is insufficient, you might want to add something like what Amir said: "in order to keep consistency between all elements of a wiki page, change such usages in your Mediawiki:Common.css (for example for infoboxes)." That's because not all TechNews readers can deduce action items by themselves. HTH, Strainu _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list [hidden email] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l |
Re: Changes in colors of user interface
|
|
I just want you to stop there
On Sat, Dec 10, 2016 at 2:07 PM Strainu <[hidden email]> wrote: > That's one way to put it. I would rather say that we reacted to yet > another slip-up in communication from the Foundation. Why is it so > hard for you guys to push the information to wikis? > > Why is this related to WMF? A volunteer developer changed a color and it got confirmed by another (probably) volunteer. If it wasn't in the Tech news. It was my fault but what is WMF role and what does "another slip-up" here means? Do you really want to compare this to something like MediaViewer rollout? Best _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list [hidden email] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l |
|
|
2016-12-10 12:48 GMT+02:00 Amir Ladsgroup <[hidden email]>:
> I just want you to stop there > > On Sat, Dec 10, 2016 at 2:07 PM Strainu <[hidden email]> wrote: > >> That's one way to put it. I would rather say that we reacted to yet >> another slip-up in communication from the Foundation. Why is it so >> hard for you guys to push the information to wikis? >> >> Why is this related to WMF? For 3 reasons: 1. While MW is open source, what gets deployed on the WMF servers is the legal and moral responsability of the Foundation. 2. The WMF has an 8-person "Community Liaisons" team that is dedicated to "inform the communities during the whole process of development of said software, and facilitate its adoption." [1] For me, that means that they should be the ones that make sure that changes that impact million of pages don't get left out, even if the developer forgets to notify anyone. 3. The average wikipedian does not seem to make the difference between volunteer developers and employees of the WMF (this is a personal opinion and I might be wrong). > Do you really want to compare this to something like > MediaViewer rollout? MediaViewer, VisualEditor and many others, yes. But not in the sense that this was as bad as those, rather that the WMF missed another good opportunity to establish trust and prepare for the next big feature. Small, almost invisible changes are the best time to practice and experiment with notifications and to gauge the community response: how many communities actually made changes to Common.css? How many needed to make changes? For the ones that did not make the changes, was it because they did not have the knowledge or because they missed the memo? Etc, etc, etc... This way, we (the "tech abassadors"), you (developers) and them (community liaisons) can all be better prepared for the next big deployement. Strainu [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Liaisons _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list [hidden email] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l |
«
Return to Wikipedia Developers
|
1 view|%1 views
| Free forum by Nabble | Edit this page |