IRC office hours/Office hours 2014-01-15

Chat on VisualEditor
Wednesday 15 January 2014
2300 - 2400 UTC

Timestamps below are en:Eastern Time Zone, UTC-05.00.

[2014-01-15 17:59:52] <James_F> Yes, happy Wikipedia Day. :-)
[2014-01-15 18:00:10] <Maggie_Dennis> Okay, we are go. :)
[2014-01-15 18:00:12] <matanya> past already here
[2014-01-15 18:00:28] <Maggie_Dennis> Welcome, everyone, to the VisualEditor Office Hour. :) James Forrester is here to answer questions about talk about VisualEditor.
[2014-01-15 18:00:29] <James_F> matanya: Let's agree to use UTC, though.
[2014-01-15 18:01:00] <Maggie_Dennis> So, let's dive right in. Questions?
[2014-01-15 18:01:02] <James_F> Hey everyone. Happy to talk about any questions you might have. Sorry this has been shifted from earlier in the month – I was at a conference.
[2014-01-15 18:01:42] <James_F> (Don't shout all at once. ;-))
[2014-01-15 18:01:49] <matanya> James_F: can briefly describe the status?
[2014-01-15 18:01:54] <James_F> Sure.
[2014-01-15 18:02:38] <James_F> VisualEditor is still in beta. ;-) We're deployed to all Wikipedias, with ~ 180 of them in "opt-out" mode (all users get it unless they opt out) and the rest i "opt-in" mode.
[2014-01-15 18:03:23] <James_F> For the second group, you can opt-in through Beta Features, and for both we are making a number of features available as opt-in experimental releases through Beta Features before deploying to everyone.
[2014-01-15 18:03:38] <James_F> Right now that's just the formulæ editing ("<math>").
[2014-01-15 18:03:59] <TMg_> sorry to start with a heavy question. performance. it's like downloading megabytes and waiting twenty seconds just to fix a typo. is there a major bottleneck you are aware of?
[2014-01-15 18:04:18] <James_F> Soon we're going to release inline language editing ("<span dir="rtl" lang="he">") and others.
[2014-01-15 18:04:30] <Maggie_Dennis> (TMg_, question noted - if James forgets before answering the last one, I'll prompt him. Thank you. :))
[2014-01-15 18:04:42] <James_F> We're also adding core functionality like better copy-and-paste support.
[2014-01-15 18:04:57] <KuboF> maybe performance should be better if section editing is available (?)
[2014-01-15 18:05:16] <James_F> The main feature we're working on right now is quick-adding citation templates (so a single button that will add "<ref>{{cite foo|…}}</ref>")
[2014-01-15 18:05:50] <James_F> There's lots more, of course, and happy to talk about that at length, but I think that's a reasonable "over-view".
[2014-01-15 18:05:51] <marktraceur> KuboF: I think the Parsoid leg would prevent that from being the case but I haven't kept up with the rocket science happening there for a few months
[2014-01-15 18:06:00] <marktraceur> rocket surgery* sorry
[2014-01-15 18:06:13] <James_F> matanya: Is that enough, or do you want me to give more details?
[2014-01-15 18:06:33] <matanya> that answers the question, thanks
[2014-01-15 18:06:35] <Maggie_Dennis> James_F, TMg_ asks, "sorry to start with a heavy question. performance. it's like downloading megabytes and waiting twenty seconds just to fix a typo. is there a major bottleneck you are aware of?"
[2014-01-15 18:06:50] <James_F> matanya: Sure.
[2014-01-15 18:06:54] <James_F> Thanks Maggie_Dennis.
[2014-01-15 18:07:06] <James_F> So, performance is a complicated thing to talk about.
[2014-01-15 18:07:22] <James_F> There's "performance" in the sense of how long it takes to get the editor started.
[2014-01-15 18:07:33] <James_F> There's "performance" in the sense of how long it takes to do something inside the editor once it's started.
[2014-01-15 18:07:42] <James_F> There's "performance" in the sense of how long it takes to do save the page from inside the editor.
[2014-01-15 18:08:01] <James_F> And then there's the resource hits on the client (in network, memory and CPU time).
[2014-01-15 18:08:20] <James_F> We've made improvements in all four of these areas over the past months.
[2014-01-15 18:08:34] <James_F> I can talk about the problems in each section (at some length!) but don't want to bore you.
[2014-01-15 18:08:50] <James_F> The most obvious slowness for desktop users is the first and third (load and save).
[2014-01-15 18:08:58] <TMg_> if we have the time i'm all ear. ;)
[2014-01-15 18:09:32] <James_F> Loading VE is (broadly) five steps:
[2014-01-15 18:09:51] <James_F> * Get VE source code (~800 KiB, cached and loaded only once per week).
[2014-01-15 18:10:00] <tos> James_F: For slower internet users, VE is a nightmare. How much of an improvement (in the first and second) in performance can we expect in the weeks/months to come?
[2014-01-15 18:10:39] <James_F> * Get page's HTML rendering (depends on the page; this is faster than loading the page to read it, but that's not necessarily saying much).
[2014-01-15 18:10:51] <James_F> * Convert the page's HTML rending into a linear model we can edit.
[2014-01-15 18:11:05] <James_F> (No network traffic, just local CPU/memory work.)
[2014-01-15 18:11:33] <James_F> * Render the linear model into editable HTML (again, no network, just local CPU/memory).
[2014-01-15 18:11:58] <James_F> * Initialise the toolbar/etc. (some slight network for things like edit notices, mostly trivial).
[2014-01-15 18:12:19] <James_F> Each of these has been sped up a little, and we're working on ways to improve them more.
[2014-01-15 18:12:59] <James_F> For example, the cacheing of VE code (and all code for our sites) now uses HTML5 LocalStorage rather than disc cache, which has made things much faster for most users.
[2014-01-15 18:13:19] <James_F> The most noticeable step is the loading the HTML over the wire.
[2014-01-15 18:13:37] <James_F> One of the things we'd like to do is be able to re-use the HTML that clients already have (the read HTML).
[2014-01-15 18:13:55] <James_F> This would mean replacing the existing PHP renderer of the HTML with Parsoid's (much better) HTML.
[2014-01-15 18:14:14] <James_F> But this would mean re-writing the CSS (and possibly some of the code) of skins, and would probably break gadgets etc.
[2014-01-15 18:14:31] <James_F> So it's a really major change and we're not keen to just break things without proven ability to fix them.
[2014-01-15 18:14:34] <gwicke> James_F, most noticeable in terms of time?
[2014-01-15 18:15:02] <James_F> gwicke: In terms of network traffic, which is more of an issue than CPU time for desktop users.
[2014-01-15 18:15:17] <TMg_> currently the user experience is like: when you hit edit it looks like the editor is loaded imediatelly but you can't start doing anything. it's "gray" with a spinner for many seconds. when it's done nothing changes visually. it looks the same. so the user asks what took so long?
[2014-01-15 18:16:16] <gwicke> you can check that in the network console
[2014-01-15 18:16:21] <Elitre> TMg_: that doesn't happen to me. Article size might be the reason for taking so long?
[2014-01-15 18:17:08] <tos> I agree to TMg_. James_F, it it necessary for the screen to be frozen on the grayed out screen while VE loads? I suspect it makes the loading time appear even longer than it actually is
[2014-01-15 18:17:12] <James_F> Another thing we've considered doing is skipping step 2, and loading the VE linear model HTML from a server (calculating it in advance). This would reduce CPU time and memory, but increase network time (relative to using local HTML).
[2014-01-15 18:17:29] <tos> Elitre: Article size and slower internet.
[2014-01-15 18:17:46] <James_F> Perhaps we could offer both options, and pick one based on local conditions, but that sounds like a mess.
[2014-01-15 18:17:52] <KuboF> what about UniversalLanguageSelector IME? for example on Esperanto Wikipedia many users can not edit Wikipedia without such things like automatic conversion of characters - it was told that it will take months...
[2014-01-15 18:18:28] <James_F> TMg_: It looks the same, but it's all completely new HTML to be editable.
[2014-01-15 18:18:47] <James_F> TMg_: We actually work really hard to make it look the same. :-)
[2014-01-15 18:18:51] <TMg_> i know. most users don't know that.
[2014-01-15 18:19:04] <TMg_> i know that. :)
[2014-01-15 18:19:13] <James_F> We could make it look less like the read mode, but that would defeat the purpose of VE.
[2014-01-15 18:19:35] <James_F> I suppose that /theoretically/ we could actually serve VE-editable HTML to the reader in some way.
[2014-01-15 18:19:39] <James_F> But that would be slow.
[2014-01-15 18:19:47] <James_F> Because the HTML differs by the browser.
[2014-01-15 18:20:02] <James_F> So your page would take a few seconds to render each time you read it.
[2014-01-15 18:20:08] <James_F> Which would be … less good. :-)
[2014-01-15 18:20:28] <James_F> (BTW, the differences between browsers is very depressing and makes for a huge amount of work.)
[2014-01-15 18:20:56] <James_F> tos: In terms of improvement, we've been releasing improvements every few weeks.
[2014-01-15 18:21:28] <tos> James_F: What about copy-pasting references. Will that be allowed?
[2014-01-15 18:21:53] <James_F> tos: A new improvement is going to go out tomorrow (on MediaWiki.org, next week on Wikipedias) which will reduce network usage by switching encoding formats.
[2014-01-15 18:22:36] <James_F> tos: Another thing we've thought about is writing a gzip library into VE so that we can compress data we sent to the server (to reduce save time).
[2014-01-15 18:23:18] <James_F> tos: Copy-pasting of references between different VisualEditors, or inside a single editor?
[2014-01-15 18:23:51] <KuboF> James_F: both coping is interesting
[2014-01-15 18:24:29] <James_F> tos: They both should work, though there have been issues with copying just the reference (which I thought were fixed, but may have broken).
[2014-01-15 18:24:58] <James_F> tos: If they're not working for you in a reproduceable way (or even if not!), could you raise a bug so I can investigate?
[2014-01-15 18:25:20] <tos> Yes. I was unable to copy just the reference, I think. I'll let you know what was the exact problem so you can look into it
[2014-01-15 18:25:28] <James_F> Thanks!
[2014-01-15 18:25:45] <James_F> KuboF: The ULS IME is totally broken for VisualEditor, yes. :-(
[2014-01-15 18:26:07] <KuboF> James_F :(
[2014-01-15 18:26:29] <James_F> KuboF: One of the VisualEditor engineers has transferred just last week to be working with the Language Engineering team as well, and this is going to be one of his main priorities.
[2014-01-15 18:26:35] <KuboF> James_F and the time you suppose to need to fix it?
[2014-01-15 18:26:46] <James_F> KuboF: But yeah, it's really disappointing to me.
[2014-01-15 18:27:06] <James_F> We don't know. With IMEs in general, we need to investigate the way that they try to insert characters into the document.
[2014-01-15 18:27:13] <James_F> Each IME has its own way of doing things.
[2014-01-15 18:27:22] <James_F> (A standard exists, but no-one uses it.)
[2014-01-15 18:27:38] <James_F> Sometimes we find that it's not too much work to accept how the IME works.
[2014-01-15 18:27:59] <James_F> Other times, we find that the IME does something extremely broken that means we need to re-write parts of VisualEditor to cope.
[2014-01-15 18:28:05] <KuboF> James_F: do you think about one-by-one adding of IMEs of all in one?
[2014-01-15 18:28:34] <James_F> Right now I don't think we know for sure which place we'll be in for jQuery.IME (the IME in ULS), and we might need to make changes to it. We'll see.
[2014-01-15 18:29:15] <James_F> We have built an automated IME test suite so that we can monitor issues and reproduce them.
[2014-01-15 18:29:30] <James_F> This will mean we can avoid any regressions once we get an IME working.
[2014-01-15 18:29:56] <James_F> But in general we may need to do one-by-one support (or, at least, testing) before switching on for those languages with native IMEs.
[2014-01-15 18:30:11] <James_F> For the jQuery.IME system we should be able to get all of them in one gol.
[2014-01-15 18:30:13] <James_F> -l
[2014-01-15 18:30:26] <James_F> Though "should" doesn't necessarily mean "will". :-(
[2014-01-15 18:30:41] <James_F> KuboF: Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. :-(
[2014-01-15 18:31:26] <TMg_> question about image scaling. i know it's nice for new users to be able to scale images like in Word. but all our long-time users don't understand why VE does this instead of using "thumb", "upright" and nothing else. why was it done that way?
[2014-01-15 18:31:26] <tos> James_F: Why is "Switch to source coding" in the drop down list than a button of it's own. It is almost as useful as saving the page
[2014-01-15 18:32:05] <James_F> OK, I'll take TMg_'s question first.
[2014-01-15 18:32:15] <James_F> Thumb, upright and others are coming. We're still at only a very early stage with images.
[2014-01-15 18:32:57] <James_F> A lot of this has been held up by the back-end work to support images (which isn't great), but we're close to having a lot of functionality working.
[2014-01-15 18:33:06] <TMg_> oh. that's actually a good answer. thanks you.
[2014-01-15 18:33:34] <James_F> You'll be able to make something "default" thumb size, adjust it pixel by pixel (not just dragging), add alt text, make it left/right/centre aligned or inline.
[2014-01-15 18:33:46] <James_F> Those should (!) be done in the next week or two.
[2014-01-15 18:34:20] <Ziko> tos: +1
[2014-01-15 18:34:25] <James_F> Then later converting type (thumb -> frameless -> inline -> …) and back, adding/removing border, setting link=, thumb= and so on.

[2014-01-15 18:34:55] <James_F> Later still are specialised ones for sound and video files, for multi-page documents (|page=3) and others.
[2014-01-15 18:35:00] <TMg_> thanks. however, question remains: why the pixel scaling instead of forcing thumb?
[2014-01-15 18:35:29] <James_F> You mean, why do we set a default size of a certain number of pixels rather than the default default size of "thumb"?
[2014-01-15 18:35:39] <TMg_> that's simply something we don't do in articles. at least we try to avoid it.
[2014-01-15 18:36:07] <James_F> Yeah, I think it's not currently possible to tell our backend to add an image with "default" size, sadly. Something we want to get done soon.
[2014-01-15 18:36:12] <James_F> Sorry. :-(
[2014-01-15 18:36:38] <James_F> (And yes, avoiding setting size except when it's needed is important to ensure accessibility of pages for users other than the current editor.
[2014-01-15 18:36:44] <TMg_> "in the near future" answers the question. next. :)
[2014-01-15 18:36:50] <James_F> Sure. :-)
[2014-01-15 18:37:09] <James_F> Now tos, I guess.
[2014-01-15 18:37:22] <James_F> We want to reduce the number of buttons in the toolbar quite aggressively.
[2014-01-15 18:38:03] <James_F> I wanted to put the "switch to source mode" in the save dialog, but people said it was wrong because that's the VE save, not the WT save.
[2014-01-15 18:38:19] <James_F> We're not "done" and the toolbar (and lots of other things) are up for discussion.
[2014-01-15 18:38:51] <James_F> Maybe making the "save" button have a drop-down?
[2014-01-15 18:39:01] <James_F> I'd love to discuss ideas. :-)
[2014-01-15 18:39:19] <James_F> Maggie_Dennis: I understand you might have some questions from people who weren't able to make it?
[2014-01-15 18:39:25] <Maggie_Dennis> Yes, James.
[2014-01-15 18:39:31] <Maggie_Dennis> Pulling up....
[2014-01-15 18:39:38] <TMg_> switch to wikitext is one of the few buttons i expect to be 1-click. sorry.
[2014-01-15 18:39:49] <tos> James_F: Exactly where can we discuss them? Because my personal opinion is that a button for Switching is essential until the time VE is still in beta.
[2014-01-15 18:39:50] <Maggie_Dennis> An Italian Wikipedian recently inquired about https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=49603 , the ability to see/edit HTML comments, an old favorite feature at other wikis as well. Any updates about it?
[2014-01-15 18:40:31] <James_F> tos, TMg_: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor/Feedback is always a good venue.
[2014-01-15 18:40:41] <tos> James_F: A drop down could be a possible solution, but a 1 click solution is much more required
[2014-01-15 18:41:07] <James_F> tos: Why are you feeling the need to switch to wikitext so often?
[2014-01-15 18:41:23] <TMg_> control. having full control.
[2014-01-15 18:41:25] <tos> References, Tables, Wikitext
[2014-01-15 18:41:51] <tos> ^ Three very often used functionalities that aren't available on VE yet.
[2014-01-15 18:41:54] <James_F> tos: References (all kinds of edits) and editing the contents of tables work in VisualEditor, though.
[2014-01-15 18:42:16] <James_F> tos: What are you trying to do with a reference that you can't do in VisualEditor? I'm pretty sure you can do anything you're meant to do.
[2014-01-15 18:42:46] <TMg_> being able to see the difference between an ''non-italics dot''. and an ''italics dot.'' may sound strange but is important for long-time users.
[2014-01-15 18:43:08] <tos> James_F: Unless I am seeing something wrong, you still have to specify the exact template name for referencing etc. For someone who uses Prove-It, it's clumsy to try and remember all template names and their parameters
[2014-01-15 18:43:43] <James_F> tos: Oh, OK. I've used Prove-It but found that it took too much control away fro me so, like TMg_, I don't use it. :-)
[2014-01-15 18:44:17] <James_F> TMg_: You should use a computer/font that shows the difference – though VisualEditor shouldn't create ''italics dot.'' in normal typing.
[2014-01-15 18:44:25] <James_F> TMg_: But that's a different problem. :-)
[2014-01-15 18:44:32] <James_F> Anyway. Maggie_Dennis's question.
[2014-01-15 18:45:13] <TMg_> that was just an example. there are much more that will never be able in a WYSIWYG environment. no matter what you do.
[2014-01-15 18:45:21] <James_F> Sure.
[2014-01-15 18:45:42] <tos> James_F: Personally, I think Prove-It is much more effective than VE's referencing. Lesser number of clicks and it provides all the significant/important options that you'll require
[2014-01-15 18:46:13] <James_F> Seeing (and editing) HTML comments is one of our priorities for this quarter – I talked about options with some of the rest of the team this weekend, and we're working with the designers to think up an interaction model where you don't fill the screen with odd little yellow note symbols that might frighten a user, but still get the information to them in context when needed.
[2014-01-15 18:46:20] <tos> Will we see any significant updates on that front?
[2014-01-15 18:46:44] <James_F> Hopefully we will have something next month or in March for HTML comments.
[2014-01-15 18:47:04] <James_F> tos: On the citation dialog front?
[2014-01-15 18:47:06] <Maggie_Dennis> Thank you, James_F.
[2014-01-15 18:47:22] <tos> Yes. Having citations being inserted in a much easier fashion
[2014-01-15 18:47:36] <marktraceur> tos I'd suggest that you could write a gadget to stick something Prove-It-like into VE, that filled out the forms for you...based on the presentation at Wikimania I bet you could even do it without forms, though I'm not sure how
[2014-01-15 18:47:49] <James_F> tos: Right. Yes, lots of work – that's the main thing we're working on right now.
[2014-01-15 18:47:58] <James_F> tos: Have you seen mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor/Design/Reference_Dialog ?
[2014-01-15 18:48:15] <Ziko> citation is a certain piece of craft one has to teach in wikipedia lessons, and it*s important for not being reversed
[2014-01-15 18:48:44] <Ziko> reverted
[2014-01-15 18:48:49] <James_F> Yes.
[2014-01-15 18:48:55] <James_F> Which is why we're working on it. :-)
[2014-01-15 18:49:05] <tos> marktraceur: Yes that could be a possiblity. But having VE getting this inbuilt will be more relevant. In any case thanks, and I'll look into that possiblity
[2014-01-15 18:49:34] * Elitre raises hand for a question
[2014-01-15 18:49:38] <tos> I havent James_F. Will check and let you know what I think
[2014-01-15 18:49:40] <James_F> Elitre: Please, fire away. :-)
[2014-01-15 18:49:43] <James_F> tos: Thanks!
[2014-01-15 18:49:57] <James_F> tos: We're aiming for two-click insertion of a citation.
[2014-01-15 18:50:04] <James_F> tos: Possibly even one in the future.
[2014-01-15 18:50:19] <Elitre> I have seen that bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51734#c11Â is now fixed (Create an editor for TemplateData).
[2014-01-15 18:50:39] <Maggie_Dennis> (10 minute warning, everyone. :))
[2014-01-15 18:50:57] <James_F> Aha, yes.
[2014-01-15 18:51:03] <Elitre> perhaps our attendees would like to hear from their communities if they're interested in testing it?
[2014-01-15 18:51:32] <James_F> Yeah, possibly.
[2014-01-15 18:51:34] <Maggie_Dennis> Maybe it would be a good idea to talk more about the editor or the bug. :)
[2014-01-15 18:51:49] <James_F> We've created an editor that lets you add and edit TemplateData without having to learn JSON.
[2014-01-15 18:52:21] <James_F> It's not as fancy as VisualEditor, but it's a lot easier to use than JSON.
[2014-01-15 18:52:35] <James_F> No cryptic messages about format being broken.
[2014-01-15 18:52:38] <Elitre> (yay!)
[2014-01-15 18:53:17] <James_F> It's also much easier to use in an RTL context (because the mixture of LTR JSON control characters and RTL language isn't visible to the user).
[2014-01-15 18:53:20] =-= Lcawte|Away is now known as Lcawte
[2014-01-15 18:53:25] <TMg_> are there plans to improve the TemplateData format?
[2014-01-15 18:53:40] * tos has a couple more questions packed away if there is time to answer
[2014-01-15 18:53:43] <James_F> We just got the first version merged yesterday, but it's switched off by default.
[2014-01-15 18:53:55] <James_F> tos: Ask them! If I can't answer I can follow-up or answer later.
[2014-01-15 18:54:02] <tos> James_F: Are there any functionalities from the original editor that "will not" be introduced in VE, atleast in the short to mid-term basis?
[2014-01-15 18:54:04] <Maggie_Dennis> tos, if we run out of time, we are doing office hours same time next week, and you can also, as James says, ask them for later followup. :)
[2014-01-15 18:54:22] <James_F> So we're looking for a community that wants to try out the TemplateData editor on a real wiki, rather than just our testing.
[2014-01-15 18:54:30] <tos> Maggie_Dennis and James_F: Gotcha, thanks :)
[2014-01-15 18:55:03] =-= idh0854 is now known as DangSunM|cloud
[2014-01-15 18:55:30] <James_F> TMg_: Yes, there are a few additional improvements for TemplateData like saying whether a template is designed for a particular namespace or adding more parameter types like URL.
[2014-01-15 18:55:42] <Maggie_Dennis> (5 minute warning)
[2014-01-15 18:55:46] <TMg_> source formatting parameters?
[2014-01-15 18:56:02] <James_F> TMg_: Our policy has been to not add more things to TemplateData until we've actually had the time to put them into VisualEditor, which is coming.
[2014-01-15 18:56:06] <James_F> Source formatting?
[2014-01-15 18:56:24] <Elitre> (if your wiki wants to try this editor, let community liaisons or James know!)
[2014-01-15 18:56:33] <TMg_> tell VE if a template is supposed to be a 1-liner or a multiline infobox.
[2014-01-15 18:56:41] <tos> James_F: Also, a vast majority of the updates we require for VE to be significantly useful for editing are still pending (Speed, references, wikitext). When do you estimate VE to be "out of beta"?
[2014-01-15 18:56:51] <James_F> tos: We're not planning to make it impossible to do anything sane from WT in VE, but there are some things that won't work (e.g. you won't be able to add both __NOINDEX__ and __INDEX__ to a page).
[2014-01-15 18:56:51] <gwicke> TMg_, that might be interesting for Parsoid, but less so for VE
[2014-01-15 18:57:12] <gwicke> we also want more info about balancing of parameters and entire templates in templatedata
[2014-01-15 18:57:24] <James_F> tos: "Beta" in what sense? Certainly we're going to be actively developing VisualEditor with new features coming out regularly for years.
[2014-01-15 18:57:59] <James_F> tos: I think it's up to communities to decide how comfortable they are with VisualEditor (or any other part of our software) and so whether and how they wish to use it.
[2014-01-15 18:58:48] <tos> James_F: In the sense that most of these major issues are fixed (Atleast the ones I mentioned.) I cannot forsee myself being able to use VE in place of the regular editor with the slow internet I currently have
[2014-01-15 18:59:04] <James_F> tos: Sorry about that. :-(
[2014-01-15 18:59:18] <Maggie_Dennis> One minute to go, folks. James_F has another meeting after this so has to depart sharply, but we are back next week, same time. I also have a few more questions from people who could not attend for you then, James_F. :)
[2014-01-15 18:59:26] <Maggie_Dennis> Final thoughts?
[2014-01-15 18:59:29] <TMg_> there will always be a major issue. ;)
[2014-01-15 18:59:44] <Ziko> i want to prepare the second edition for my wikipedia text book, and i still dont know a good point of time...
[2014-01-15 18:59:49] <James_F> TMg_: True, but my job is to fix them quickly. :-)
[2014-01-15 19:00:20] <Maggie_Dennis> Okay, so we're out of time for this week. I hope those of you who still have questions will be able to join next week.
[2014-01-15 19:00:25] <James_F> Ziko: I don't give out long-term timelines to people because they're just lies, sorry. Development takes as long as it does. :-(
[2014-01-15 19:00:26] <Maggie_Dennis> Some really great questions this time. :)
[2014-01-15 19:00:28] <tos> James_F: Also, are there any plans to revisit the way references are handled in WIkitext itself? For newer editors, it's a huge menace to understand and fix the traditional wikitext related to how references work. If anything can be done to ease the entire process, that will be perfect
[2014-01-15 19:00:35] <Maggie_Dennis> tos, I'll write that down for next week.
[2014-01-15 19:00:43] <James_F> tos: Promise I'll answer.
[2014-01-15 19:00:48] <James_F> tos: But right now I have to run.
[2014-01-15 19:00:52] <James_F> Sorry everyone, and thank you!
[2014-01-15 19:01:18] <TMg_> tos: i think "use templates" is and still will be the answer.
[2014-01-15 19:01:30] <tos> James_F and Maggie_Dennis: Next week can you have a longer time/make it more flexible to extend time in the later half, please? 60 minutes is short considering how much time it initially takes to start :)
[2014-01-15 19:01:31] <Maggie_Dennis> tos, is this question still pending? "James_F: Are there any functionalities from the original editor that "will not" be introduced in VE, atleast in the short to mid-term basis?"
[2014-01-15 19:01:41] <Elitre> thanks everybody for attending, and see you soon!
[2014-01-15 19:01:54] <Maggie_Dennis> Well, they're usually set for an hour. Sometimes it's hard to fill that hour. :) But we can try to ramp up more quickly.
[2014-01-15 19:01:59] <Maggie_Dennis> It helps when we have questions already!
[2014-01-15 19:02:05] <tos> Maggie_Dennis: No. That particular one is answered. Also thanks for noting the other question down
[2014-01-15 19:02:16] <Maggie_Dennis> Thanks, tos. I want to be sure that we cover everything.
[2014-01-15 19:02:27] <Maggie_Dennis> If James doesn't have anything going on after the meeting, we can try.
[2014-01-15 19:02:40] <Ziko> good night folks
[2014-01-15 19:02:44] <tos> TMg_: Was that as an answer to the references question?
[2014-01-15 19:02:49] <TMg_> yes.
[2014-01-15 19:03:57] <tos> Ah. I disagree. It's a terrible pain to make the newcomers understand to use the <ref> tags, and then add the {{Reflist}} at the end, and not to copy over the entire list of refs at the references section. Something to streamline this entire process is much needed