Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2022-04-24/Technology report

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SG attribution

From the use of the third person, I would never know unless I hovered over the abbreviated —SG signature that the Desktop Improvements project section was written by the WMF Desktop Improvements team's community relations specialist, not by a community member. It's far from ideal to have the team writing coverage of themselves rather than reporting on them independently, but it's understandable given the Signpost's perennial staff shortage. But when that happens, it's vital it be disclosed clearly and prominently. This was not. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 00:25, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

You're right, @Sdkb. For full disclosure, I contacted EpicPupper and had his acceptance for my direct contribution to the Signpost. It's... yeah, "sub-optimal", as they say, for me to write for the Signpost directly, as if it was a Diff blog post. I've added a clear "(WMF)" and I'm open to suggestions on how to further improve the situation in the future. (On a side note, hey, no bragging or anything, but I've been a community member since 2010, I just work for the WMF as well. :p ) Peace✌️ and see you at the office hours, I hope! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 01:41, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the note, SGrabarczuk (WMF). To be clear, I don't see anything warped in your write-up; my comment was directed at The Signpost based on the principle of it. For future instances, I think requiring that people writing about themselves use the first person and including footnote disclosures like here would be a reasonable approach for the publication to take. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 17:24, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

Media Viewer documentation

The release of the Media Viewer triggered one of the largest Wikimedia community protests in the history of the Wikimedia Movement. One side was Wikimedia community members with ethical and social concerns; paid staff of the Wikimedia Foundation presented counter arguments to those concerns. I regret that in the end, the Wikimedia community did not set up documentation linking to its positions, and fear that the community's advocacy and organization will be forgotten in the future if it is not documented. If anyone were to set up an archive for discussing that activism, and perhaps connect the present request to that past activism, then I would join in talking, and I expect that others would also. Bluerasberry (talk) 18:53, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

This protests and concern of superprotect protection to force installing MediaViewer is imminent at that time. Thingofme (talk) 02:14, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

Desktop Improvements

I'm opted in to see Desktop Improvements as soon as possible, and on the whole I think a very good job is being done. I've got quibbles, but I was no fan of the old display, which kept Wikipedia firmly in the year 2001. Doubtless the team will see more complaints than positive feedback, firstly because you only make the effort to contact them if you have a big complaint, and secondly because the community are really, really resistant to design changes. Reflecting on design changes to desktop is a good time to also think about how the mobile view looks: almost all editors work exclusively on desktop, but the mobile view of an article is at least as important as desktop. As editors, we have responsibility to think about how the articles we write look on mobile. — Bilorv (talk) 09:23, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

Thanks @Bilorv! You may be surprised to learn this (I would be) but honestly, we've been hearing a lot of pure enthusiasm (like "I only came here to say 'this rocks', bye") and constructive comments/requests. However, the more communities use our interface as default, the more likely any kind of negative feedback is. Some communities are also more challenging to talk to than others. So we have a nice mix of approaches and experiences. BTW, join our office hours if you'd like to talk more about the project! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 02:30, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

That's good to hear—the team definitely deserve the praise. I'm not generally the biggest fan of the WMF, but with the Desktop Improvements and the Growth Team features, there has been some fantastic stuff recently. — Bilorv (talk) 19:42, 28 April 2022 (UTC)