User talk:TMg

Wow, thanks. I'm still afraid I waste my time and the German users will reject the tool like they did in the English Wikipedia. It really, really needs to be opt-in. --TMg 11:31, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Flow Portal/FAQ
Please do not continue to revert the topic, as you have done. Thanks.--Jorm (WMF) (talk) 22:28, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Jorm: Why? "No" is not a proper answer to such a complex question. "No" is obviously wrong because the prototype and every second comment on the talk pages are talking about banning source editing. Please give a proper answer or write something like "currently discussed" or "Flow will use whatever Visual Editor offers" (which would be a bad decision in my opinion, but that's an other topic).


 * More general: It's not that I don't like Flow. I know we need a better discussion system in the Wikipedia. I want it as much as I want an easier file upload and an easier way to do simple edits in articles (not for me but for all my less technical friends). I want to help making Flow a success in the German Wikipedia (which is my main wiki). But I can not and I will not waste my time for this if you reject to communicate and don't want to give proper answers to complex questions. --TMg 12:52, 15 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Hi, possibly I can help. Over at the en.wiki version of the FAQ, an editor added the text from a comment that Jorm wrote in a talkpage-thread, to the equivalent question (w:Wikipedia:Flow/FAQ). I don't think it would be ideal to use that text over here, as a more concise answer would be preferable (in both locations!), but hopefully it will at least partially answer the question for you, in the meantime.


 * In regards to the more specific aspects of what exactly will happen to our current system of writing (i.e. the nice things Wikitext thread), I've tried to concisely summarize this issue (which has been discussed in a multitude of locations) at the bottom of this thread: w:Wikipedia talk:Flow - I've asked the VE developers and Flow developers to look at that list, and to give a short response sometime in the next few weeks (once they've all gotten back from Wikimania and holiday), so hopefully that will answer that question.


 * Hope that helps. Quiddity (talk) 17:22, 15 August 2013 (UTC)
 * So I'm right? This is a complex question. It needs a complex answer. Responding with "no" is the same as telling the volunteers they should "shut up". That's not how this is going to work. For now I replaced the unsufficient answer with a copy from en. --TMg 10:47, 16 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't think that either your edit-warring or what you've done most recently is appropriate. This is, at some level, a very simple question with a very simple answer:  Flow is not "replacing wikitext".  Flow is replacing discussion pages, not wikitext.  This very simple question and very simple answer is needed because there have been false rumors spread about Flow.
 * In terms of the "complex question", today's answer is equally simple: the question cannot usefully be answered until the answer is actually known, i.e., until after the staff has had time to write the specifications documents.  I'm sorry if "please do not keep demanding detailed answers until it is possible to give you an accurate detailed answer" sounds like "shut up" to you.  That is not what is being said and not what is meant.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:51, 16 August 2013 (UTC)
 * You know how this works, it's always the other one that edit-wars. I added the question and all I got was a "shut up" in form of a meaningless "no". I tried to get an appropriate answer and got reverted. I tried to remove my own question and got reverted. I don't know anything about "false rumors". I do my own deduction, I tried the prototype (knowing what it means) and read talk pages and there was and is an insane amount of discussions going on about this question. If the answer is "nobody can give an accurate detailed answer at the moment" then write this please. "No" is obviously wrong. If Flow depends on Visual Editor it will actually remove wikitext by default for most editors that do not want or do not know how to enable source editing. This will make things more complicated overall because most users can't and don't know how to simply copy and paste stuff between articles, talk pages and whatever external text editors a user prefers. That's the simple reason why I beg you: Rely on wikitext for the posts. WYSIWYG for talk pages is completely unnecessary. It's nice to have threads, headlines, automatic signatures and archiving. None of the features we really need and want requires a restricted WYSIWYG editor. Give us the freedom of source editing. --TMg 00:06, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, I know how this works: when you keep edit warring against multiple editors, you get blocked.  I don't want that to happen to you.
 * Flow does not require VisualEditor. Therefore, Flow does not "remove wikitext by default", or in any other way.  It's about 99% certain that Flow's internal database will store the data as HTML5+RDFa rather than directly as wikitext (or perhaps it will store it in duplicate, as both formats), but that doesn't mean that you will be forced to use VisualEditor.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:23, 18 August 2013 (UTC)
 * WhatamIdoing: Who is the edit-warrior if I tried to remove [ my own] addition and got reverted? This does not make sense. Maybe the wording of my initial question was bad. English is not my native language. This may explain why none of the answers was an answer to my question (except [ for this], at least partially). Please let me refine my own question or let me remove it if it was a bad idea in the first place. If it's true that Flow will use the Visual Editor for most unexperienced users by default then it's true that wikitext will be "removed" (read: hidden) for these users by default. If it's required to change a setting to disable Visual Editor then the users will in fact be "forced" to either use the Visual Editor or to change their settings. We know most users will never do this. Wikitext will be completely hidden by default for them. They will never have a reason to learn wikitext and it's advantages. It will be frustrating and time consuming to talk to these users because they don't know and don't understand what the experienced users are talking about. I think this is a problem. My solution for this problem is simple: No WYSIWYG in talk page posts (similar to Liquid Threads). It's not needed anyway in 99% of the posts. --TMg 17:35, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't remember anyone saying that wikitext will be "hidden", by default or any other way.
 * If you have questions, then please ask your questions in the discussion pages, rather than continuing to edit war over the documentation. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:04, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Is my English so bad? Could you please try to understand the problem? It's not a question if wikitext is hidden. It is inaccessible in the current prototype and invisible when using the Visual Editor. If Visual Editor will be the default for new users (like Jorm wrote) then wikitext will be hidden by default for these users. This is simple reasoning and not a question. --TMg 20:30, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
 * TMg, why are assuming that the product will work exactly like the prototype? It won't.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:40, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
 * WhatamIdoing: Does this mean you think every single aspect of the prototype will be the opposite in the product? This does not make sense. Even if some details will change many things will be very similar. If the current prototype bans (for example) source editing and editing of foreign posts than it is a perfectly valid question to ask if this is going to be the same in the product. Users are actually asking these questions. Simply look at the different talk pages. These questions must be answered. --TMg 19:44, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Upcoming prototype
Hi TMg, I'm Maryana, the product manager for Flow. Below, please find a gallery of screenshots of the most current prototype we're building (not the one linked from the Flow portal, which was an early, static design prototype; the one we're building now, which is representative of the full technical capabilities Flow will have onwiki). As you can see, wikitext, including some fairly sophisticated templates and extensions, works just fine :) There's a bit more work to do, but we're hoping to release this new prototype on a publicly accessible test environment soon and allow users to test it out for themselves. We'll let you know when that happens so you can play around with it and provide feedback, if you're interested. If you have any more questions, just let me know. Maryana (WMF) (talk) 18:47, 20 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Maryana: Wasn't Jorm the product manager? Thanks, but these screenshots only show rendered talk pages. They don't show how this was entered. My question to you is: Why should an experienced user that even knows how to enter checkuser templates and magic words (really, who uses magic words on talk pages on a regular basis?) be constricted by a WYSIWYG editor? This does not make sense. An user that is able to use advanced stuff like this on a talk page is perfectly able to enter all this in source. On the other hand everything new users do on talk pages is to write a sentence and press "Save page". Neither experienced nor new users need a WYSIWYG editor. There are only some use cases between these two where a WYSIWYG editor on a talk page can be helpful (best example: fixing a typo in an existing post is way easier in WYSIWYG mode). That's why I ask you to make source editing the default. Providing a per-project setting for this would be bad because this will (again) lead to the small projects sticking with the default setting and the big projects disabling it. --TMg 20:30, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I am the designer, not the product manager. Different roles.--Jorm (WMF) (talk) 20:34, 20 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Hey again, TMg. Regarding the images above, they're based on a question I asked at w:Wikipedia_talk:Flow where I specifically summarized this problem as clearly as possible (We want to be able to copy-paste source text, as easily as we do now), and I searched through about 40 usertalkpages from my watchlist and bookmarks in order to find some diverse examples of the types of wikisource text that people type or paste into discussions. Hence the strange selection of examples. :) Quiddity (talk) 21:05, 20 August 2013 (UTC)


 * RE: these screenshots only show rendered talk pages. They don't show how this was entered – it was entered exactly how it appears in the diffs that Quiddity linked to on the page above. That is, exactly how you enter markup into an editing window now. As I said, we'll soon have this prototype available for testing, in case you don't believe me ;)
 * As for WYSIWYG editing, I think you're confusing the Flow project with the Visual Editor. We may enable some pieces of VE on Flow at some point in the future (a new user might not ever care about adding templates to a discussion, sure, but what about easy/quick bolding and linking?), but probably not in the first release; in any case, these are two completely separate pieces of software. Maryana (WMF) (talk) 21:27, 20 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Quiddity: I see, thanks.


 * Maryana: I assure you, I don't confuse Parsoid, Visual Editor and Flow. You know they have to work together. I'm talking about the final combined user experience. This may sound like I'm confusing them.


 * Things like quick bolding and links aren't good examples because they were never a problem. New users hit the buttons and see how it works. After a short time they enter the characters by their own. We got responses from users in our adopt-a-user program (people actively asking for help) and nobody ever had a problem with this simple stuff. If the first release of Flow will not have any WYSIWYG my question is answered for now. I will look at the coming prototype for sure, thank you very much for letting me know.


 * If Flow will support something in-between source editing and WYSIWYG this leads to more questions. Does this mean there will be a magic detection if pasted text contains something that looks like wiki markup? How does the editor know if a user wants to paste visible source or something to be parsed? And how do you do it the other way around then, copy from a talk page? Will it be like in Microsoft products where you have to use complicated menus to paste stuff the way you want (because Ctrl+V always does it wrong)? More duplicate "edit" links scattered around the page like the Visual Editor currently does (I really hope this is temporary)? A button in the GUI of all editors to switch between them? (More buttons? You really think a WYSIWYG editor with hundreds of buttons for all features will be easier to use? I think this is the main problem why every single attempt to reinvent editing of semantic structured documents failed and why every sane person is coming back to syntax highlighting and WYSIWYM.)


 * When the Visual Editor project started I was sure there is only one way to do this (I was so sure because I'm studying this topic for 15 years now, even before Wikipedia started): Basic stuff like headlines, bold, italics and links will be WYSIWYG. Everything a bit more complicated will be shown as gray boxes in the editor containing syntax highlighted source. This product would have been finished months ago. Starting from there more features relevant to new users could be made WYSIWYG, e.g. often used citation templates. Step by step over the course of the next (lets say ten) years. Together with the communities. Without being forced to support every single aspect of wikitext right from the start. Without making every user angry at the Foundation in general because everything he was used to is changed in a big bang. Why wasn't it done that way? --TMg 22:15, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I can't see any way that we would have a kind of "in-between" editor system. The only think I could think that could approach this type of function would be if the VisualEditor were modified so that it could detect that pasted content was actually wikitext and then convert it on the fly (which at first glance doesn't sound like a bad idea but when you dig into it it kind of defeats the purpose of a VisualEditor entirely, for reasons that Erik has outlined elsewhere).
 * We are planning to have a third, "scratchpad" editor, which will be parsed with the PHP parser (and not Parsoid). This may be where the confusion lies.  However, that editor will behave nearly identical to our "wikitext editor".
 * As far as the GUI for them goes, it is my desire to be as minimal as possible. We'll have to explore just exactly what that means, however.--Jorm (WMF) (talk) 00:49, 21 August 2013 (UTC)