Talk:Tech/News/2015/42
Add topic@Johan (WMF): I don't think "The database size lists have been updated. This hadn't been done since February." is an appropriate entry for Tech News. It is meaningless to the vast, vast majority of editors. Instead, it should be framed in terms of the consequences and user-facing outcomes of this change (are there any worth mentioning?) This, that and the other (talk) 00:05, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
- Relevant criticism, thanks. Tech News is a bit split in the sense that it's historically been used as a tool both to reach out to a) non-technical editors who have an interest in what's happening, as a simple way of keeping track and b) technical users, such as bot or gadget developers, and having done this only for a few weeks, I'd probably not very good at finding the right balance yet. One thing that has been suggested, that I plan to introduce in one of the coming weeks (if no one else does it before me) and see what people think, is some sort of symbol to signify a technical update of the kind that's relevant to a minority of technical users only. /Johan (WMF) (talk) 07:10, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
- (It's too late to rephrase it – the translators wouldn't have a chance – but removing it would still be an option, of course.) /Johan (WMF) (talk) 07:19, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
- @Johan (WMF): My problem with the item was twofold: (1) It barely affects the wiki functionality, it is purely an internal change (with possibly some very minor changes like global abuse filters becoming enabled or disabled); (2) The item didn't really make sense even to technical people. I have been around a long time, and I was left scratching my head when I read "database size lists". I thought it was talking about something like List of Wikipedias. When I clicked the Gerrit link I realized what it was referring to (small/medium/large.dblist), but before then, it was completely incomprehensible. All the same, I maintain that this shouldn't have been included at all without some kind of explanation as to how the change would affect the users (by "users", I mean to include editors, administrators, stewards, Scribunto/Lua module authors, gadgets authors, etc. but not behind-the-scenes infrastructure developers). Otherwise they will ignore it as meaningless. This, that and the other (talk) 08:47, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
- @This, that and the other:Did the version that went out in English make more sense? /Johan (WMF) (talk) 08:14, 13 October 2015 (UTC) Corrected signature, sorry, wrong browser.
- @Johan (WMF): It was certainly an improvement. I think Guillaume would probably have simplified it even further though. This, that and the other (talk) 09:00, 13 October 2015 (UTC)
- @This, that and the other:Did the version that went out in English make more sense? /Johan (WMF) (talk) 08:14, 13 October 2015 (UTC) Corrected signature, sorry, wrong browser.
- @Johan (WMF): My problem with the item was twofold: (1) It barely affects the wiki functionality, it is purely an internal change (with possibly some very minor changes like global abuse filters becoming enabled or disabled); (2) The item didn't really make sense even to technical people. I have been around a long time, and I was left scratching my head when I read "database size lists". I thought it was talking about something like List of Wikipedias. When I clicked the Gerrit link I realized what it was referring to (small/medium/large.dblist), but before then, it was completely incomprehensible. All the same, I maintain that this shouldn't have been included at all without some kind of explanation as to how the change would affect the users (by "users", I mean to include editors, administrators, stewards, Scribunto/Lua module authors, gadgets authors, etc. but not behind-the-scenes infrastructure developers). Otherwise they will ignore it as meaningless. This, that and the other (talk) 08:47, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
- (It's too late to rephrase it – the translators wouldn't have a chance – but removing it would still be an option, of course.) /Johan (WMF) (talk) 07:19, 12 October 2015 (UTC)