User talk:Jimbo Wales

(Manual archive list)

Article feedback → Flow

Yesterday I learned that the Foundation quietly pulled the plug on Article feedback on March 3, 2014. How did I learn that? Through a Signpost article? No, I noticed because of this diff in Help:Special page, which is on my watchlist. It says something about the dysfunctional state of product development here that documentation wasn't updated until 5 June 2014—three months later—to remove this deprecated system. The reason for shutting Article feedback down is stated here: "Most participants agreed that Flow is better positioned to give our readers a voice -- and that we should clear the way to make it a success." I'm not sure that I agree with the premise that "talk pages—as a discussion technology—are antiquated and are not intuitive." That description might well be more aptly applied to something like this. Heck, here I am starting a discussion on this meta-topic here on Jimbo's talk page because I find it more accessible than a Wikimedia maling list. Where are all the complaints that people have trouble using talk pages? I haven't seen that many.

OK, I guess I need to just "go with the flow". I want to submit a {{subst:Requested move}} on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Breakfast. So I tried to start a new topic there and put this into the edit box:

{{subst:Requested move|Wikipedia:WikiProject Meals|reason=Breakfast is too limited a topic for a WikiProject. Expand coverage to include lunch and supper as well.}}

I was not successful, as I see:

An error occurred.

The error message received was: Database query error

I do trust that Flow will support WP:Requested moves, how is that supposed to work? Wbm1058 (talk) 14:44, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

• I suspect that everyone is so shell-shocked and hoarse from screaming about the debacle that has been VisualEditor that Flow has been ignored by many and consigned beneath the bed with other monsters. Alas, it is coming to save us all from a problem we don't even have. Of the recent software engineering initiatives that come to mind, I personally feel that two have been positive (1. the new look, feel, and functionality of USER CONTRIBUTIONS > EDIT COUNT; 2. the way clicked image thumbnails respond, first generating an enlargement with file info requiring two clicks, instead of vice-versa). Two have been failures (1. the new format for the New Pages queue for page patrol; 2. the reader-generated article feedback system). And then VisualEditor, which is clearly the most important initiative of any of these and which has been — to date — a catastrophe. The latter is about to be relaunched on English WP, I understand. I hope it has been improved mightily since last time around... Carrite (talk) 15:11, 6 June 2014 (UTC)
  • VE is definitely getting there. If it had been put out to the community for the first time in the state it is now, the WMF's engineers could have saved themselves a lot of lost trust. — Scott • talk 15:17, 6 June 2014 (UTC)
  • @Wbm1058: Oh, that edit was by me! It's not like I was acting in any official capacity, either. I was just removing a useless red link to a tool that I knew in a general sense had been withdrawn. The page you link to at MediaWiki is pretty risible; it says This page and related documentation will be edited in coming days to reflect these recent developments, which completely isn't the case - anyone reading mw:Article feedback would think it's an ongoing initiative. Dysfunctional indeed. Somebody from the WMF should really fix that. — Scott • talk 15:27, 6 June 2014 (UTC)
    • Right, Special:ArticleFeedbackv5 red-links, but I don't see a record of which administrator deleted it, I just see: No such special page : You have requested a special page that is not recognized by Wikipedia. A list of all recognized special pages may be found at Special:Specialpages. Some time ago I pointed out that is not true, that special page does not list "all recognized" special pages. Unfortunately I can't do a "what-links-here" on "No such special page" to find any other instances of Special:ArticleFeedbackv5 that might still need to be removed. Wbm1058 (talk) 15:48, 6 June 2014 (UTC)
    • Maybe Special:ArticleFeedbackv5 should redirect to mw:Article feedback/Version 5? Perhaps I can use Flow to submit an edit request for that? Sorry, sarcasm intended. Sigh. Wbm1058 (talk) 16:01, 6 June 2014 (UTC)
    • I'd like to know when the WMF is going to make it a priority to give editors a voice. They should just let the editors worry about giving readers a voice, since it's the editors who make most of the content decisions. Wbm1058 (talk) 16:11, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

The problem with Flow isn't just that it's half finished, buggy, lacks basic things like a table of contents (at least they have something of a history now).

The big problem is that it is being pushed by radical philosophies of user interface that we don't believe in. I called "bunkum" months ago on their claim that #333 text is easier to read than black on white text - [1] - nobody bothered to respond. Then they de-emphasize content with grayer text, with prefill instructions greyer than that, until you can scarcely read them. You can scarcely read anything with their bunkum about huge margins being easier to read with, which I see they're being called on at [2]. For those of us who like to flip down a screenful at a time, tap tap tap, until we see something interesting, or scroll the whole thing fast when we're in more of a rush, this is a terrible way to go through a talk page. Even if you "Zoom out" on the browser, those narrow columns just get narrower and narrower, and the 100%+ dead space between lines means the print gets unreadable faster than it would otherwise - especially since, for some reason, replies are given smaller fonts than the text they reply to. It's just plain awful.

But out of everything, the very worst thing is a seemingly trivial decision to reorder threads by when they were last edited rather than when they were posted by. This allows them to do "infinite scrolling" of the type seen on many online forums. The problem with this is that "infinite scrolling" makes old postings quite inaccessible, and really only the top few threads are going to get most of the attention. The result is that the Gini coefficient of our talk page sections is going to go way down - some posts will get huge numbers of replies, others practically none. If you have a question or comment about an article, it will have one brief moment in the sun, maybe someone will respond, but 90% of the time, it will quickly sink down behind the perennial edit war of the day, never to be seen again. Whatever you post, good or bad, most of the time you will never get an answer. That may be just fine for a site like Reddit that mostly looks to entertain the lurkers, but it's absolutely unacceptable for an encyclopedia that needs to cherish every criticism it receives in the hope of purging most of the errors out of an article. Wnt (talk) 17:12, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Right on all counts. If Flow is rolled out in any state closely resembling where it's at now, the community's response will make the VisualEditor debacle look like a tiny hiccup in comparison. I can only hope that the WMF's engineers have learned from what happened last time. To be completely honest, I can't really see it being broadly accepted at all by the user base any time soon. — Scott • talk 18:09, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

reorder threads by when they were last edited That's not how Flow works currently, it's sorted with Newest topics at top. Soon you'll be able to switch between that and sorting to Recent active topics which is what I think you're describing. As for topics sinking out of view, it is a concern. In Flow you can close a topic with a summary, perhaps we can have a filter to show all unclosed topics. Meanwhile, the crazy obscure "Archives: Index, A, B, ..." that you see on this very talk pages has its own access issues. Regards. -- S Page (WMF) (talk) 02:08, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

That one of not only the very oldest, but also the very busiest user talk pages in all of Wikipedia has had various inconsistent ad-hoc archive formats applied to it its 13 years' worth of content is completely irrelevant to Flow. The incredibly defensive way in which you refer to that speaks volumes. — Scott • talk 14:42, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

• @Wnt: et al: Flow is not "half-finished" - it has only just started, relatively speaking. It has an incredibly large number of features to implement (many listed at mw:Flow/Release planning#Feature buckets), design-decisions to revisit (the light-grey text being top of my frustration-list), and yes, bugs to fix (as any software in development has) before a larger-scale rollout (beyond the pages that have volunteered to live-test the ongoing development) is even considered. There's also an overhaul to the front-end design coming soon (next few weeks, if all goes smoothly), with many more aesthetic changes, based on our feedback and user-testing, in the months and years after that. In the meantime, if you've ever been at all frustrated with classic wikitext talkpages, or with workflows involving convoluted multi-step multi-template processes, or had frustrations trying to explain them to someone who was smart but non-technical, then please, please, bring your suggestions and brainstorms and ideas, to the Flow talkpages. It aims to improve the life of powerusers and newcomers alike, but it needs all of our input, steadily and patiently, in order to get there, in the long-term. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 02:29, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

  OK, it looks like my question isn't going to be answered here, so I'll have to hunt down the appropriate Flow-related talkpage and ask my question there... hopefully I won't need to sign up for an email list to get my question answered. But if the answer is, "that's a workflow involving convoluted multi-step multi-template processes" and Flow is better than that because it's not convoluted", well that would be a wrong answer. Meanwhile there are real problems crying out for Foundation-provided solutions, see here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wbm1058 (talk • contribs) 04:21, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

  Oh, I see: mw:Flow/Architecture#Workflow. So I will "define a "requested moves" type of workflow. What's an "MVP"? The details don't appear to be much worked out yet. You guys should realize that we've already put a lot of time into designing the existing RM workflow, which for the most part is working very well, thank you. Now the proposed mergers workflow is another story, but we'll get to that eventually. Heh, I see: work"FLOW" Wbm1058 (talk) 05:00, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

  @Wbm1058: I'm sorry that I didn't reply to you earlier, when I left the other reply; I was slightly late for dinner, and had to dash without investigating.

  Regarding the subst error, I've filed bugzilla:66307, and S has filed bugzilla:66303. Thanks for helping discover these new bugs. MVP stands for "minimum viable product" in that instance.

  Regarding renaming the wikiproject, I'd suggest that they specifically chose a narrow area to cover, because that's what they wanted to focus on? See Template:Food projects for the related family of WikiProjects. You could always just ask them. HTH. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 05:32, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

  Somehow it's not encouraging to see that a bug needs to be filed for something as basic as template substitution. One should have to work a little harder to find a bug. Despite the message at the top "it is NOT a sandbox for random testing of Flow" that seems to me to be just what it's being used for. My move request was just a test, not a serious request. Cheers, Wbm1058 (talk) 13:33, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

This is sort of off-topic, since you're really all talking about Flow, but there's no point in you filing that move request anyway, because it's going to be very properly denied. "WikiProjects have the exclusive right to define their own scope", regardless of anyone else's opinion about whether they have chosen "too limited" a subject. A WikiProject is a group of editors, and if a given group of editors happen to want to work only on articles about eating duck eggs for breakfast, then there's no good reason for any of us to discourage them from working on their chosen set of articles, and no practical way to force those WP:VOLUNTEERS to work on a broader subject even if you thought you had a good reason to do so. In the specific instance, there are only three or four editors in this particular group, and they're already trying to support a thousand articles. That's plenty of work for a group that size. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:21, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

I thought my reply to Quiddity above made my intentions clear, but evidently not. My point in attempting to file that move request was to see how compatible Flow was with WP:RM. The answer is that right now, it's not at all compatible because it doesn't support template substitution. I don't really care whether my "request" to move the project is accepted or denied. In any event, most of the volunteers participating seem to be more concerned with Flow than breakfast. Wbm1058 (talk) 15:54, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

I think it would be more accurate to say that "most of the volunteers participating" aren't actually volunteers participating in the WikiProject at all, but instead are people demonstrating how badly they're affected by banner blindness, since they're not (a) running their tests on the designated test page or (b) posting their feedback on the designated page for feedback. Both of those pages are linked in the large, bright-pink box at the very top of WikiProject Breakfast's talk page, in the event that you want to find them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:37, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Whatever. OK, I tested requested moves over on the official test page. Check it out. Based on my testing, I would say that Flow is a "fail fast and cut what we cannot do" project that attempts to solve problems that don't exist and unnecessarily distracts volunteer developers from their work on real problems. Wbm1058 (talk) 02:41, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

• Correct any logical flaw here: assuming Visual Editor comes back to us fixed, there is no reason why any new participant can not edit talk pages effectively using the current format and the current software. Carrite (talk) 06:05, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
  • That seems sound to me. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 14:11, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
    • VisualEditor is (currently) unable to "sign" posts, which is why it's not enabled in any talk namespaces. As far as I know, there are no plans to create this feature. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:36, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

      Why do we say drove and not drived? Only ~3% of all verbs are English irregular verbs, but the ten most frequently used verbs are all irregular, per ISBN 978-1-59448-745-3. When rules of grammatical conjugation die, they leave behind fossils. If the VE developers continue to insist on grammatical purity, and refuse to let Wikitext language leave behind fossils like ~~~~ and [[ ]], then they may be dooming their product. Wbm1058 (talk) 21:54, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF). Is there a reason that something as basic to daily life as a Wikipedian as a signature is not part of VE? Carrite (talk) 14:41, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Regarding feedback from readers: Readers aren't trustees of the WMF, employees of the WMF or editors. What they think doesn't matter. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 13:15, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

My sense is that the theory behind Flow is the same as that which motivated the "Reader Feedback" idea: that if casual readers can be induced into commenting, they will find commenting fun and they can easily be converted into actual editing work. This notion has been proven false, yet professional inertia pushes the Flow program forward. It is akin to a suggestion that posting a reader comment on a newspaper's website will cause a person to become a journalist...

There is no objective reason we need to have a new way to handle Talk Pages. They work fine. If the developers really want to improve the world with new visual presentations of content, come up with some cool new OPTIONAL skins for WP and make the use of skins better known to casual visitors and long-time editors alike. (PREFERENCES > APPEARANCE > SKIN for any signed-in account — I use Cologne Blue, it's swell). We don't need buggy new software to make talk pages perform more "Facebooky"... Carrite (talk) 14:49, 9 June 2014 (UTC) Last edit: Carrite (talk) 14:51, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

Is Wikipedia doing ANYTHING against this

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2626216/Hundreds-immigrants-feared-drowned-Italy-Libya-says-swamped-human-tide-trying-Europe-says-HELP-unless-gets-aid.html--37.230.13.151 (talk) 20:33, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

How can we do anything in that situation? We aren't a humanitarian aid organisation. —Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 20:38, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Don't you have a news section on your main-site, where everyday's events are reproduced?--37.230.13.151 (talk) 20:41, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Plus, you have a lot of "controversies on..."-articles. Is there any article elucidating the people that there are thousands of fellow men drowning in the Mediterranian, on a weekly, if not daily basis, and nobody including the potentates and authorities do care in any way?--37.230.13.151 (talk) 20:45, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

In response to the first, we do, but we are not a news source first and foremost (try Wikinews instead). In response to the second, we're obliged by the Wikimedia Foundation not to do that. —Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 20:52, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

So you want to assert that making people aware about facts like human beings from an exploited continent like africa are drowning regularly and in vast numbers on an almost daily basis trying to get to the continent that ruined theirs is not in accordance with a "Neutral Point of View"? Please search the internet for "drowned immigrants" or something similar and tell us why this is not fact?--37.230.13.151 (talk) 20:57, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

My issue wasn't with *what* it';s about it's *how* you put it. —Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 21:05, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a soapbox. As an Italian and human being, I understand the outrage for what happens in the Mediterranean, but it is not our job to increase awareness of humanitarian causes in the public. If you really want to help about that, you'd better read our policies, make an account possibly, and improve articles on the relevant topics. That's the best we can do here. --cyclopia^speak! 21:16, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

We have articles like Lampedusa, Lampedusa immigrant reception center, 2013 Lampedusa migrant shipwreck, 2011 Mediterranean Sea migrant shipwreck, 2009 Mediterranean Sea migrant shipwreck, May 2007 Malta migrant shipwreck, Katrine Camilleri, not counting the others from Turkey and Albania. You're certainly welcome to start one specifically on the people fleeing to Libya seeking entry to Europe; we have Refugees of the Libyan Civil War but I don't see an article for the now reversed situation. Or simply organize navigation of these articles better. Also, potentially you can give immigrants a better idea of what to expect, potentially reducing their risks of exploitation, by collecting more detail on the mechanics of European border enforcement, sort of like United States Border Patrol interior checkpoints. And of course, don't neglect consideration of the human rights issues at the source countries! Wikipedia isn't a soapbox, but it is meant to be a point to disseminate information, and if truly all information were known to everyone, all injustice would end. Wnt (talk) 06:39, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

As mentioned, please use our Sister Project Wikinews for events like this one. Wikipedia can afford to wait. --k6ka (talk | contribs) 12:01, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

"Carrying the conversation into the wikis..."

On the Wikimeida-l mailing list WMF's VP of Engineering and Product Development Erik Möller suggested recipients engage in "carrying the conversation into the wikis" about Engineering&Product's draft goals for the coming fiscal year, which begins July 1. The complete document may be found HERE. I'd like to do that with a big question in this very prominent place.

One of the line-items for "Editor Engagement-Core Features" for the July-Sept. 2014 quarter is this: • Auto-archiving existing talk pages when Flow is turned on. My interpretation of this line is as follows: (1) There is a plan at WMF to "turn on" Flow across English Wikipedia. (2) When this takes place, there is a plan to immediately auto-archive all existing talk pages and to "start from scratch" with new Flow versions of those pages. Is this accurate? Carrite (talk) 14:54, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

I don't know but it sounds extremely positive and about time.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:36, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

It sounds extremely................ major to me, if my take is correct. There may be enormous unintended consequences and it may not be something that can not be reverted (in the event Flow is a debacle in practice) without another set of unintended consequences. I certainly hope that Flow is not turned on system wide without extensive testing, including a couple real-life high traffic talk pages — not just sandboxy things like the talk page for WikiProject Breakfast... Carrite (talk) 17:32, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Of course, but keep in mind that some people will climb the Reichstag no matter what happens.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:40, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Some people might be very upset if active discussions, move requests, RfCs, etc suddenly disappear from sight. Surely that isn't the plan? Dougweller (talk) 17:53, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Hopefully it just means that auto-archiving will be added to talk pages, not that they will actually be archived, but I've asked at [3]. Dougweller (talk) 17:57, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Tim, have a look at Wikipedia talk:Flow/Archive 2#What's going to happen to old talk pages? for some discussion about this last year. — Scott • talk 18:21, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

We can probably get away with using the wikitext "header" section of the new Flow pages as a temporary host for existing discussions, starting all new discussions in Flow, and aggressively bot-archiving wikitext-based discussions away as soon as a discussion is, say, a month old. Either way, wouldn't it be better to have this discussion on the technical Village Pump? {{Nihiltres|talk|edits}} 18:02, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Quiddity (WMF) just told me above that Flow was "just begun" and definitely "not half finished". It doesn't seem to have changed much since last year. If it's being rolled out in three months, that's some remarkable acceleration! Wnt (talk) 19:22, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

@Wnt: Read the document carefully. Broad rollout on Wikipedia in Apr-Jun 2015. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 23:05, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

• Scott's link above leads to the following, seemingly official, comment from Brandon Harris/Jorm: "Flow-enabled pages will "subsume" the User_talk space for areas they are enabled. The older talk page (or talk pages) will be moved to a different url... They will remain wikitext pages. Flow will then ignore them forever." In other words, everything standing on every talk page is going to be effectively "hatted" when Flow is "turned on." That will be interesting, eh? An RFC is in progress? Whoosh, gone. A content change request is made? Vanished. Every discussion on every topic? Hidden from easy view. That's just three major consequences off the top of my head in about 45 seconds of thought... And, if this thing sucks, turning it off is going to cause the same set of problems all over again, in reverse. (And how is an RFC going to run on a talk page, by the way???) Carrite (talk) 19:28, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
• Oh, I see. Once the switch is flipped, if everyone goes with the Flow, then there will be a new WMF-provided way for doing everything on talk pages. If they don't, then editors will carry on as usual on "archive" subpages that haven't been converted (unless all talk subpages are protected). The existing RM process might work on subpages. In any event, I realize I'm supporting a dinosaur, so won't waste much time on further short-term enhancements to a dying system. I like to climb to high places, but I'm not up for drama. Wbm1058 (talk) 19:42, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
  • I for one am prepared to start directing people to "User:Scott/Talk" to converse with me if Flow is forced upon us. I suspect many people will do similar. It's not a prospect that I enjoy considering. — Scott • talk 19:54, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

I don't know if that will work, since people will want the same talk pages, and won't want to ignore what's left in Flow wasteland either. True, you pretty much need your own talk page just to track the relevant threads on a well-read Flow page that drop out of sight due to lack of replies, but doing this manually would be a lot of make-work. So far as I know Flow is still un-Lua-able and untranscludeable ({{WT:Breakfast}} yields "

 Main page Article assessment Article collaboration Article alerts Project templates Members Talk page 

nutritional Information about oats

In the english article on Wikipedia about oats, it says in the nutritional values of the product that it has "2,5grams of protein per 100 gram" Never have i seen the protein content in oats this low and i believe it is faulty information.

Hope someone knows how to edit it. i have tried but failed since the info is somekind of link form another site.

Requested move 18 October 2023

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) estar8806 (talk) ★ 14:14, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

---

Wikipedia:WikiProject Breakfast → Wikipedia:WikiProject Food and drink/Breakfast task force – I propose that this inactive food and meal wikiproject be merged into WP:FOOD as a task force, same as how Cheese TF and Desserts TF are, and how other inactive wikiprojects have been converted into taskforces over time. -- 65.92.244.127 (talk) 08:32, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

• Support. This probably should have been a regular discussion and not a move discussion as it's about the scope (changing from a project to a task force), but since this project is inactive and since the RM discussion is anyways on the same page, I guess the RM will bring more eyes to this and provide for a better consensus. Gonnym (talk) 09:45, 18 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support Rreagan007 (talk) 20:02, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

A note on the revert of the requested move

The bundle move of Wikipedia:WikiProject Breakfast and its subpages has been reverted per WP:PMRC#3, as the target's title is unambiguously erroneous and in the wrong namespace. Under the correct title Wikipedia:WikiProject Food and drink/Breakfast task force, the outcome of this closed discussion may still be valid, but please leave it for a further discussion. NmWTfs85lXusaybq (talk) 16:17, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

Nomination for merger of Template:WikiProject Breakfast

Template:WikiProject Breakfast has been nominated for merging with Template:WikiProject Food and drink. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. 65.92.244.127 (talk) 05:29, 26 October 2023 (UTC)"), so you can't organize and reorganize them like you can our present talk pages.

I think it's time to take a step back and riddle out the theory of this debacle. To begin with, what is a Wikipedia developer's job? Be honest. I assume the answer is "to get a job at Facebook or Google". To do so, you need to write Facebook-like interfaces and code, you need to defend Facebook-like privacy policies (i.e. "no", put more verbosely), but above all, you need to maintain functional APIs for these companies to scrape the Wikipedia database most effectively. What this means for us is that stuff like Wikidata supports APIs right out of the box, but even years later a trick I used to get some of the functionality inside Wikipedia was considered a bug that developers actually had to remove from Lua in order to keep from happening. Anyway, according to this hypothesis, m:Flow/Architecture/API mw:Flow/Architecture/API is the place to understand and use a Flow board effectively (and perhaps even make it readable), and it needs to be done from off site; the question is whether an honest site going by old-fashioned Wikipedia principles has a place in this, or whether it'll all be left to the PR people and professional critics. Wnt (talk) 20:32, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

I don't think you're right about developers wanting to work for Facebook or Google. Well, maybe they do, but FLOW really is something that's coming at us from WMF as a body, not from loose-cannon developers. Markup and user-led innovation are old hat and a barrier to participation. People understand social media, so if we're not exactly like social media we are locking them out. They seem to be fairly open about the fact that they are not interested in Flow being fit for purpose, only in it being as intuitive as possible. They would probably deny this, but the rationale set out at mw:flow says: "Many things about the culture that has grown up around talk pages ... are confusing. That is not to say those conventions are wrong, merely not what those users are prepared for." In other words, the way we currently do things may be right, but that's not the point. So there seems to be a knowing trade-off. Flow is more intuitive, but it is less flexible and less suited to collaboration. The core problem, it seems to me, is that most social media is not actually designed to be productive or facilitate collaborative working. Formerip (talk) 22:50, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

• Wnt, I'm confused. I think you mean mw:Flow/Architecture/API. Why do you need an API to edit chat pages? So bots can "chat" with people? So bots can edit people's comments? But one of the reasons for Flow is that people are "confused" by the fact that they can edit each other's Wikitext comments? It doesn't make any sense. But, since I don't do social media (FB/twitter) maybe I'm missing something. Wbm1058 (talk) 00:26, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm presuming that talk pages with flow will still be able to be redirected, like User talk:ClueBot NG currently is, for example. If so it ought to be simple - redirect the talk page to a non-talk space page. Anyway, can anyone see what happens with archiving Flow threads? I mean, having to scroll through 500 headers, even if there were a table of contents (which I've heard there won't be), to find an old discussion is quite ridiculous. BethNaught (talk) 21:19, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Alleluia! See WP:Statement on Wikipedia from participating communications firms

Or see Ad Age

I see this as a key turning point for Wikipedia (assuming the ToU changes are also put through).

Remember when the BLP policy went thru? Everybody thought it would be difficult or impossible to enforce and would bring Wikipedia down by violating our first principles. Instead it marked a new life for us as readers and new editors started taking us seriously. I predict that's what will happen this time as well. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 21:56, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

I agree. A great opportunity is upon us.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:04, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

• I was invited to the meeting at the Donovan House that ended with this agreement; sadly my grant request was turned down and I was unable to attend. That said, Ive stayed in pretty constant contact with the organizers of the event, as well as some of the participants. In my estimation, the PR people involved in this are being deadly serious in their positions. This is, I think, likely to provide us with our best chance to-date to integrate PR editors in to Wikipedia's workflow in a way that doesn't damage the integrity of the encyclopedia (and helps us cover undercovered areas better,) and at the same time discourage people and companies from using under the radar Wiki-PR style groups. I honestly believe that this has a significant chance of representing a turning point in our relationship with the PR industry. Kevin Gorman (talk) 22:09, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

• There have always been a number of "Good Guy" PR firms, including many of those in CREWE. They aren't the problem. They might be part of the solution, in that they will be looking to establish new editing structures to address the legitimate concerns of their clients, but this group of companies saying they are going to play by the rules (implicitly under the assumption that the rules will be fair to them) doesn't affect the broad situation in which WP content writing is a growth industry for freelancers, in which companies of smaller and smaller size are coming to see WP presence as an essential part of their marketing efforts, in which there are absolutely no fetters upon the creation of multiple accounts and paid COI editors flying under the radar. It's an opportunity for an alternative editing process to emerge, yes, but I still don't see anything from WMF but continuing efforts to ratchet up the rhetoric and the war with paid COI editors — which will continue to drive things underground, away from supervision and control. Carrite (talk) 23:10, 10 June 2014 (UTC)