User talk:Jorm (WMF)/Archive 1

I know you really, really, really want to add a "Welcome" template to this page. Please don't.

Mentioned you
I mentioned you by name over here. --MZMcBride 00:10, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Extension:LiquidThreads/Redesign
Hi. If you really want to own Extension:LiquidThreads/Redesign, you need to move it to a user subpage (something like User:Jorm (WMF)/LiquidThreads redesign). This will make it clear to everyone that you're acting as the guardian of the page and it contains only your views. If it's in the extension namespace, the current attitude and behavior toward the page needs to change. --MZMcBride 01:35, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
 * It was originally in a WMF Projects namespace, which indicated it was ours; it was moved out of that into the Extension Namespace. I am not the owner of the page but it does not belong in my personal space.  The design is open for discussion and that means exactly that.  If you can think of a better, non-user space page for what is an official WMF document, I'm all for hearing it.--Jorm (WMF) 02:05, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
 * There is no "WMF Projects" namespace, at least not in any meaningful sense. Wiki pages, in the general sense, are meant for open collaboration and editing. That's a fundamental principle of a wiki. You've now reverted that page several times, apparently with no regard for what the change is.
 * If you want to have a page documenting your vision for LiquidThreads, I think that's fine. I don't think anyone here has a problem with that. But if it truly isn't open to collaboration and editing by others, the easiest, clearest, standard way to indicate that is to put it your user space. That makes it clear to others that it's yours, which your reverts and note at the top clearly indicate. --MZMcBride 02:42, 24 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't believe Jorm means to "own" the page. However, blanking entire sections of the page has never been an acceptable way to work collaboratively. I think it's fair to ask to discuss major changes on the talk page, but to allow minor changes on the page. Another possibility is to do a POV-fork for the redesign, if other people have an alternate solution to offer (but I'm not convinced POV-forking is the way to go). guillom 02:25, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
 * From the top of the page, "If you have any questions or suggestions, please put them on the Discussion page rather than editing here, please!" I'm not sure how much clearer that can be (in addition to the multiple reverts in the page history). I also don't accept the premise that bold editing is undesirable. My comments above make it clear why I think it's important for this page to be in the user space if it's going to be an exception to the standard wiki philosophy. --MZMcBride 02:42, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
 * My understanding of the issue here is that Jorm doesn't consider this to belong to him, he considers it to belong to the WMF, hence why he argues it doesn't belong in his user space, but at the same time it reflects a specific opinion. Perhaps the best way to solve this problem would be to separate the current work being done by the WMF from the stable extension. I.e. having for example the documentation related to the current WMF engineering project in LiquidThreads v2 (with subpages like LiquidThreads v2/Redesign), and keeping Extension:LiquidThreads for the current, stable extension. Would that work? guillom 02:57, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
 * It wasn't unreasonable for Gurch to remove a section about a controversial feature that has (literally) no justification for its inclusion. I don't see much on the talk page justifying the feature either, though I do see several issues and negative responses to the idea. This is probably beside the point, though. The community should be involved in development like this or it should be made clear(er) that it's not being involved (or it's only being involved in peripherally). I don't think putting it in Jorm's user space is an issue, especially as he's the only one working on the page. --MZMcBride 06:22, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
 * It seems to me that removing entire sections about potential features (however controversial they may be) doesn't serve to bring in community involvement; rather, it would seem to demonstrate an attempt to steer the development direction unilaterally, rather than discuss it. So this seems moot.  Jorm to me seems to be doing his job as a WMF employee to foster discussion not shut it down, and I for one see nothing wrong with that.     Thorncrag    17:10, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Pending Changes Interface
I looked at the mockups for the NOV release of Pending Changes on prototype.wiki and my first reaction to the main review page was, This still looks cluttered. I looked at it, and thought there might be redundancy in some of the labeling in the following areas.


 * Above the blue box it says: 'Review this revision'. But then directly beneath it, it says 'Please review the pending revision below.'  Can we cut one of them?


 * Above the diff it says [accepted reversion] and [pending reversion]. What about just [accepted] and [pending]?


 * Also, the blue outline box itself adds a pretty substantial graphic load. What would it look like without it.  Cleaner, simpler, more, Vector?  For that matter, if you do stick with the blue outline, maybe use the electric blue rather than royal blue, which has a much more monobook feel to it.

Just some thoughts. Let me know what you think. Or, if this isn't your department, can you pass it on. Thanks, Ocaasi 07:07, 2 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Hey!
 * I am, indeed, the right department for this type of feedback, so you came to the right place.
 * I agree with you - wholeheartedly - that the review page looks way cluttered. I have a mockup about halfway finished for that page but it was decided not to complete it and publish it at this time because they aren't changes that will be able to make it into the November release and I didn't want to put it up there and have people think that it was going to happen.  There have been talks about putting up the designs after the release goes live in order to spark some conversations and I think that might be a good idea.
 * (I did say "eliminate that top box asap - can this be done without doing a mock up?").
 * Hope that helps. --Jorm (WMF) 17:09, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Definitely helps! And the sooner the better... Pending Changes has a bullseye on it, as you know, and a slick UI will do much for its survival.  Any chance of a mid-trial rollout of the new design, or will that be strictly 3.0?  Thanks... Ocaasi 08:00, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I can't speak to the chances of a mid-trial rollout, though that development and release style is one I know that we are working towards. Our biggest problem at this time is resources; we simply don't have enough developers (front end and back end) to work on things as rapidly as we'd like.  I know that my time, personally, is spoken for over the next several months on other projects, however.--Jorm (WMF) 16:25, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Mentioned you (again)
Hi. I mentioned you here: 25443. --MZMcBride 04:51, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Talk:Article_feedback
Given that you have worked on this tool, and that you list it on you talk page as a feature you have worked on, I believe you should recuse yourself of any discussion on this feature. You have, I assume, invested much time in it, and thus this is something more emotional for you than logical. Please recuse yourself from discussion of this feature due to this conflict of interest. (Copied from article discussion).
 * Sorry. This is my job.  I cannot recuse myself from discussion about things I am paid to do as an employee of the Foundation; there is no conflict of interest in this case.--Jorm (WMF) 06:35, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
 * You can certainly contribute, creation of he AFT was part of your job, I can see that; but I definitely see a conflict of interest in the way you have promoted the feature, the way you have discussed about it. Put another way, it would seem best to me to create the tool, observe feedback and that is about it. You are engaging in promotion and evangelism of what you have created. That is where I see the conflict. Leave that up to others who like the tool, but have not invested the time that I assume you have in creating the product. I look at your discussion and I simply see someone (to use a colloquialism) defending their baby. This is a natural instinct. I think anyone who has spent a lot of time on this as I assume you have, would absolutely want to see it put to use. It's just natural. --Timl2k4 06:43, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't think there's going to be any further value in continuing this conversation.--Jorm (WMF) 07:41, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Well that make sense, as I don't see any value in the AFT. i.e. it makes sense that you don't see any value in conversing about the uselessness of something you have created. --Timl2k4 07:44, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
 * This is neither here nor there, but you have also worked on the WikiLove feature, and I think its great. So I guess if AFT is introduced it will survive or die of it's own accord. I would send you some WikiLove, but it's not a MediaWiki feature.--Timl2k4 08:22, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I'd like to point out that it is Jorm's responsibility to develop and foster development of these types of features. For him not to do so would be a failure in executing due diligence.  Your accusations are completely without merit.     Thorncrag    17:33, 12 October 2011 (UTC)  P.S. Sorry for stalking your user page Jorm :-)

Link colors
Here's the link to the proposal for a different (improved?) link color scheme: Cologne Blue skin problems --Waldir 09:22, 5 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Ok, so updated links:
 * The link color scheme (and other tweaks, see the comments in the code) actually implemented as a user css file: meta:User:Waldir/common.css/links.css
 * The position-fixed navbar css: meta:User:Waldir/vector.css/fixednav.css. Some hacks are needed for anchors, so they don't jump to the top of the browser viewport but show beneath the page title instead when you click them
 * While we're at it, you might want to take a look at meta:User:Waldir/talk-indent-colors.css, which implements a visual way to distinguish indentation levels in talk pages by shading them in alternating light grey/lighter gray.

Let me know if I'm forgetting anything.

Cheers, Waldir (talk) 10:32, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Ribbons
How about adding Ribbons to wikilove?

New Page Triage
I hadn't seen New Page Triage until today. It looks pretty neat. :-) --MZMcBride 16:35, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Hey, thanks! I'm trying to make this as community-driven as possible, and as transparent as possible, which I know you'd be happy with.--Jorm (WMF) 05:40, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Would it be possible for us to categorize/listify/directoryize all of these proposed projects? Or maybe one exists that I'm not aware of.  Like myself I reckon a lot of community members would be interested in contributing or at least providing feedback were they to be aware of such proposals. :-)     Thorncrag    17:15, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * There is kind of a category - "New Editor Engagement" - but I agree that probably isn't sufficient and I welcome suggestions to making it better. I am trying to keep my "work list" on my user page up to date but I've not been able to do so in a while.--Jorm (WMF) 05:40, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't have any specific idea, but a main directory of all WMF projects, subcategorized by project-type, would be awesome and I reckon also advantageous to WMF folks as well.    Thorncrag    21:31, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Okay, I see that WMF Projects was added, and I am very pleased! Cheers.     Thorncrag    19:33, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Personal image filter and existing vs. special categories
Any particular reason why you didn't want to use existing categories? (Software performance?) See my comments and those of several other at m:Controversial content/Brainstorming. ASCIIn2Bme 04:43, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
 * The design document touches a bit on this, but basically we wanted to have as few categories as possible in order to allow for anonymous users to store their preferences within a cookie. Cookies have limited data storage; a practical decision of 10 to 15 seemed safe, given the number of browsers we'd have to support and the idiosyncratic nature of them.
 * It should be noted that the design as written was based under the constraint, "as easy to implement as possible". We knew going into it that it wasn't perfect, but we were trying for something that was simple to understand and could be prototyped fairly easily.  It's not what I would have come up with given infinite resources and time.--Jorm (WMF) 00:13, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Some Athena stuff
Just posting a link to User:Yair rand/AthenaSmartphone in case anything there is at all useful. I know the page [[Athena]] says the document is a "work in progress", but I thought a bit of css and js for the design showed in the pictures might be a bit helpful (I'm assuming that the pictures uploaded weren't actual screenshots), even if that's not how it's going to look in the end. --Yair rand 17:30, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I think this is totally, completely awesome. Is it okay if I link to it from Athena, or maybe even move it to a sub-page there?
 * You're correct that those are mockups and not screenshots. We've done next to zero development work on it.--Jorm (WMF) 00:11, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Re linking and moving: sure. --Yair rand 00:16, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

on rich text editors
hey there jorm... long time no see! How is the wife and kids ? heh :) I have started working as a game dev, and we are using a mediawiki to hold our documentation, but the designers don't like to use the simple editor and the FCKEditor keeps FCKing with the images they add to any article. I was gonna ask you if you could point me to a good rich text editor, but i see that MediaWiki already uses a really good one so i am gonna try to find which one and use it too... in the end, this entire convo seemed useless, but i decided to drop by and say 'hi' anyway :) --Hagnat 18:50, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Hey! Good to see you!--Jorm (WMF) 04:01, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

[LQT] Method of watching discussion on unwatched pages
Hi Jorm, I was thinking more about this feature I requested for LQT, and thought about how it could feasibly be implemented. First, my vision is to have this function like Special:NewMessages, which is great for pages you are already watching, and I very much like how it functions. I use it to watch the mworg support desk and go through new posts. But, instead of looking for new threads by cross-referencing with the user's watchlist, what do you think about adding the option of also adding based upon categories? This would allow, for instance, WikiProject members to watch for talk on all relevant pages, and perhaps allow administrators to easily with one setting watch all administration pages, or even with one setting watch all BLP pages as another example. This would also be very handy on small wikis, for instance for my intranet, I would love to have the ability to use Special:NewMessages to watch all new discussions because it is very appropriate for me. As always keep up the good work! Thorncrag   18:36, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

File:MW-Icon-Warning.svg
Has some size problems. Nemo 11:58, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Workspace phase of NPT
Hi Brandon. First I want to let you know how thankful I am for you being here. You are a godsend for Wikipedia and it's future and I want you to know that there are those who truly appreciate your tireless contributions. I also need to thank you for being such an honorable person. I have watched the vitriol aimed at you (and other WMF staffers) over the last year+ and I'm ashamed at the way the enwp community has treated you. You have always been very cordial even when being treated very poorly, so I thank you for that. You're a very honorable gentelman. I hope sometime in the future the community will realize its mistake and apologize for the awful way it has treated you. I hope the thanks you get from others is enough to offset all the other BS.

Anyway, I saw Sue's note about reorganizing everybody to focus more on new editor retention. I was very happy when you added the Workspace editing idea to NPT because I think this will have a big impact on retaining good faith editors and hopefully turning them in to long-time contributors. I've seen Steven and others from the WMF comment about this over the last few months, which has been very encouraging. I've also been keeping an eye out to see if any offical person has criticised it and I haven't seen any, which is also encouraging. So I wanted to ask, how certain is it that Workspace editing (or something similar) will be implemented in the future? Has it been greenlighted? Thanks. 64.40.60.95 23:54, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Why, thank you very much for your kind words! It means a lot.
 * Regarding the workspace editing system, I am pushing for it a lot - but I can't promise anything given that we have so little developer bandwidth. If we lived in a perfect world, this wouldn't be a problem, but we don't.  I know that there are a couple projects which are currently lining up to be next in the queue - infrastructure and platform things - but I hope to see the workspace system bear fruit.  That one requires a lot of community buy-in, however, so it's slow going.
 * Again, thank you for your kind words!--Jorm (WMF) (talk) 01:05, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the update, Brandon I really appreciate all that you've done. Sorry to hear that this hasn't been given the go ahead, but I'm happy it hasn't been axed so I am still hopeful. Thanks again for everything. 64.40.57.130 17:40, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Sorry about that
Hi Brandon. Thanks for the support at VPT. I don't mind the nasty comments people throw my way. I've gotten used to it after 8 years. I apologize my post made people act up again. It bothers me that the WMF folks and devs are treated so poorly. I wish I could do something to make up for it. Anyhoo, thanks for the support. And thanks also for all the support of the WMF projects over the years. You guys and gals of the WMF really are shining stars of the Wikipedian community in my eyes and I truly appreciate the dedication and hard work you put in to making this a better place. Best regards. 64.40.57.160 02:46, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
 * No need to apologize in any way, shape, or form. And thank you for your kind words!--Jorm (WMF) (talk) 02:47, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Brandon. You guys and gals do an excellent job and should not have to put up with all that stuff. I feel like starting a proposal at Meta to give everybody a raise for your patience above and beyond the call of duty. You certainly deserve it. Kind regards. 64.40.54.81 11:08, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

User info template
FYI    Thorncrag    15:26, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Multi-level warnings and the user talk notification
I posted on Brion's talk page, but it appears he hasn't edited since 24 May 2012. I noted that you are part of the Echo (Notifications) Wikimedia engineering project team. I posted a note on Talk:Echo (Notifications) concerning Multi-level warnings and the user talk notification. What do you think of the idea (please comment there) and is there another place in MediaWiki that I could post such a request/idea? Can you bang out a few lines of code and make this "multi-level warnings and the user talk notification" change happen? : ) Thanks. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 10:27, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Talk pages
Hi, Brandon -- I was just talking to Andrew Garrett, and he showed me the work you guys are doing on Flow and Echo. I've been working on solving some similar problems on Wikia; I'd love to show you! We're at Wikimania today, sitting in the hackathon room. Andrew said you were around here somewhere. :) If you have a minute, I'm in the ballroom, I'm wearing a black Wikia shirt and I'm pretending that I know how to write code. DannyHorn (talk) 18:38, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Congrats on your new watch!
Congrats on the well deserved Jimbo Watch and staff award! :) --Varnent (talk) 14:49, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Flow
Apologies for putting that in the wrong place, but where is community input and brainstorming supposed to go? This is a feature to serve both new and old users, and given the nature of the Foundation and the projects themselves, it most certainly would have to be a user-centred design process in order to achieve that goal.

Since the talkpage uses LQT, that clearly wasn't the place either, as such serves only linear discussion. Perhaps some of the threads may have addressed this and pointed to a more appropriate drafting page, but unfortunately due to LQT's strange use of js, it all looked like a mass of disordered lists when I tried to load it and proved impossible to follow. -— Isarra ༆ 17:33, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Actually, yes, the talk page is exactly where this type of discussion is supposed to go. LiquidThreads is actually a lot better for that then you give it credit.--Jorm (WMF) (talk) 17:37, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
 * LQT is purely a discussional medium. Even when the js does manage to load the css for the threading (which it sometimes doesn't on slower connections, and shouldn't even require js to do in the first place, but that's neither here nor there), discussions are not the place to draft anything. Where exactly did the requirements come from? How are we to collaborate on proposals for this in general?
 * From what I understand, at this stage, we stand between two prior models - LQT and Wikia's Message Wall. On one side, we have the result of too much input and too much user control, resulting in bloat, unreliability, and a complete lack of maintainability and scalability, but on the other we have what happens with no user input or control, resulting in limited functionality, unreliability, and a rather impressive revolt on the part of the users. This is why I'm asking - a middle ground is probably precisely what is needed to get something that actually works, but where is it? -— Isarra ༆ 18:05, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, it's not at a "draft" point; we're at a "discussion" point, actually. I'm not sure who turned the Flow talk page into LQT; I kind of wish they hadn't (because then we wouldn't have to always talk about LQT's viability).  At this stage of the game, the way the editor community has input is to create threads about various aspects (such as "This should be usable without Javascript") and then the suggestion is either incorporated into the specification (with a "hey, yah, good idea!") or a discussion opens on the merits/flaws of the idea, or requesting further clarification.
 * In the case of the Javascript thing - you're absolutely right, it needs to work (in some form) without Javascript. However, we haven't had a discussion about it as a product, so it can't go into the specification (developers operate off specifications, and any additions/subtractions to it for WMF projects need to be vetted for viability or priority).--Jorm (WMF) (talk) 18:16, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
 * At a discussion point? I should hope it never leaves discussion, and that it was never not at such a point; requirements change throughout and if they are not widely considered at every stage, the entire project will fail same as those that came before it.
 * But discussion is meaningless if it doesn't necessarily have any bearing on the thing itself, and even when there is a guarantee that it will, it's rarely so useful as a more direct approach - is the content page Flow not a draft, itself? Who determined the requirements in the first place, and when? Where is the community's part in the process, where are the users, both old and new? Who is this 'we' you speak of, and who are the developers? Are projects such as this exclusively the realm of paid staff, or may volunteers have a role here as well, as they will be the ones working with the software in the future? And what happens if y'all get hit by a plane and die horribly? -— Isarra ༆ 23:48, 28 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Hey Isarra, was there a "rather impressive revolt on the part of users" against MessageWall, or are you referring to Wikia in general? I know they got a fair bit of pushback and some project forks after the last skin rollout, but I'm not aware of any similar reaction associated with the MessageWall rollout (which I've not followed too closely). If you're aware of any such discussions, could you point me to them? Thanks (sorry for spamming your talk page, Brandon).-Eloquence (talk) 18:11, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Don't do it again, Erik. Or else.--Jorm (WMF) (talk) 18:16, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
 * There was one specifically about the message wall - Wikia was going to make it mandatory, but apparently some of the users felt otherwise and they never actually did make it mandatory, or some such. I don't really know the details either or where the discussions/votes/whatever wound up, though, unfortunately, as I wasn't really following the matter much myself. -— Isarra ༆ 23:48, 28 August 2012 (UTC)