Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 14:25, 11 July 2014

What now?

The RFC has been closed, so what happens now? Does this intrusive piece of cruft get rolled back? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.140.0.55 (talk) 23:00, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

New features based on your feedback

Hi folks, thanks for all your helpful feedback about Media Viewer in recent days. We really appreciate your candid recommendations on this page — and survey comments also confirm many of the issues you’ve raised.

The multimedia team is taking your feedback to heart, and we are sorry for any inconvenience caused by this tool. To respond quickly to the most frequent requests, we have now pushed back other projects to focus on Media Viewer for the next few weeks.

Here are some of the new features we are now developing for you, based on community suggestions.

1. Disable Media Viewer quickly:

• Instant Opt-in: A more prominent way for registered users to disable Media Viewer, without having to go to preferences. (#703)
• Opt-out for anons: An easy way for anonymous users to disable Media Viewer, using localstorage. (#704)

2. View images in larger/different sizes:

• View original file: A prominent button to open the original image in your browser, so you can zoom in to see its details, or download it for re-use. (#630)
• View different sizes: Prominent links to view images in different sizes from the Download panel, so you can open them in your browser. (#664)

3. Discover image information:

• Make it easier to find image information: Provide clear visual cues that more information is available, with links to open the metadata panel. (#706)
• Scroll down to see more info: Use either up or down arrows to open the metadata panel below the image, to make it easier to find. (#697)

4. Edit / Learn more on Commons:

• Show Commons link to logged out users: Show a prominent link to the Commons file page to all users, so they can learn more about this image. (#429)

5. Learn to use Media Viewer:

• Add tooltips to Media Viewer: Show more tooltips in Media Viewer, so that users can tell what each button will do. (#546)

You can view more details about these features on this development planning site.

We are working hard to get these changes completed by tomorrow, so we can test them before releasing them to production. If all goes well, we expect to deploy some of them to the English Misplaced Pages and other Media Viewer sites by Thursday evening. The rest of them will be deployed the following week.

Please let us know what you think. Which of these features seem most useful to you? Are there other critical features that you think we should consider next? We look forward to improving Media Viewer based on your feedback. Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 00:33, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

We shouldn't have to need tool tips to know what each button does. Mystery meat navigation is by definition bad UI design, and completely breaks when you're using a device without a mouse, a tablet, or a phone. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 02:41, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Since Media Viewer breaks the site's look and feel as well as the workflow I recommend disabling it completely. When you offer to make buttons larger or provide tooltips in order to make the product more useful you should rethink your premise as well as your process. A good desgin doesn't need tooltips, it has descriptive link texts (and not non-obvious icons) or uses an interface that is already known to everyone. Assuming that users want to learn or discover an interface is setting yourselves up for a lot of critique. --Millbart (talk) 06:45, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

I forgot to add that there are several critical features that are missing from your list: click-and-drag to pan, scroll wheel to zoom, a method of excluding the image from display using the new image viewer in the article markup, and the inclusion of licensing data for all images despite what template or method for indicating the license is used. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 13:50, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Thank you all for your prompt responses about these new features and other proposed Media Viewer improvements. The multimedia team just rolled out a couple new features today that may address some of your concerns:

• View original file (#630)
• View different sizes (#664)
• Scroll down to see more info (#697)
• Show Commons link to logged out users (#429)

These features can be tested on Commons today (see sample image]) and should be released on English Misplaced Pages tomorrow, if they test well.

We're also working on many other new features based on community feedback, as outlined above, and just added a couple more:

• Disable MediaViewer for certain images (#511)
• Show attribution credits in download tool (#598)

Ahecht, I hope that #511 will address your request for 'a method of excluding the image from display using the new image viewer in the article markup'. That one should be completed by next week, if all goes well. And now that the 'View original file' button is implemented, you now have the same browser zoom features as before. Millbart, we appreciate your comments about tooltips, but have observed they are commonly used in tools like these, and have been frequently requested by other community members; we think they will help casual users who are not as tech-savvy as you. We will review your other recommendations above and keep you posted on our progress with these requests. Keep in mind that we are triaging a number of requests from other users, so may not get to them all right away; but they are on our radar now.

Thanks again for sharing your concerns, which we are taking to heart. Be well. Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 22:20, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Please fix how Media Viewer handles long image descriptors. The map for same-sex marriage in the United States had a nicely ordered key first in English, then in other languages alphabetically (old-style file page) and now with Media Viewer, all the formatting is gone, languages and color boxes blend together into an unreadable and unsearchable mess (now, "improved" with MediaViewer). Beyond this, please accomplish the goals to disable Media Viewer quickly (and permanently) for logged-in or not logged-in users - everytime I see an image in it, I become absolutely livid at how unhelpful the new viewing style is. The option still exists to can this project, and I would urge that as the best course of action. - S201676 (talk) 08:39, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

This is one of my core objections. When I called Media Viewer "half-baked" above, this sort of behaviour is what I was referencing. I would be much happier with Media Viewer if it simply placed the file description in its place in the interface directly, as rendered from wikitext, because we see unintended consequences like this if the descriptions are modified. My read on this is that the Media Viewer is overreaching—in particular the way it seems to treat wikitext pages as though they were safe, "semantic" data, when they're anything but. Dialling back the design in favour of more consistent function seems desirable. {{Nihiltres|talk|edits}} 15:43, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Fabrice: Wow, simply wow! I have pointed out that tooltips are a sign of weak interface design and you explain their existence with your (anecdotal?) observation that people demand them, especially casual users who aren't as tech savvy as I am, thus proving my point. Why do people demand tooltips in some GUIs? Could it be, because the GUI is non-intuitive, obfuscated and/or different from everything already learned? (I know, that every interface apart from the nipple is acquired knowledge, but some are easier than others) Why don't you use descriptive links? What makes you think that a logo is better than text when linking to the file description? My point is: Even the tech savvy user needs tooltips with your GUI design because it is so non-obvious.

I realise that overlays and modal windows like lightbox are all the rage, but they are very rarely more than a nuisance. Here, it breaks the look and feel as well as the site's workflow, because it is unexpected behaviour. The site normally doesn't use modal dialogs. Interestingly you choose to ignore this criticism. As it is, Media Viewer doesn't improve anything at all. Please, make Media Viewer available as an optional gallery view link in the toolbox or wherever ("View all the article's images") if you really think that it is useful for something, just don't force it on everybody as the default, especially if it can't be disabled globally. --Millbart (talk) 09:00, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

I don't know if someone already suggested this, but if you are holding control or something like that and click on the image, then it should be able to instantly go to the Misplaced Pages file page for said image. Dustin (talk) 15:56, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

For me (using Chrome) this does open the file page, but does so in a new tab. Therefore, in addition to having to having to hold control while clicking, I also need to move up to the top right corner and open the new tab. These extra steps waste my time, and would suck up even more of it if I was using a laptop with a touchpad rather than having a mouse. This again is not desired operation nor a friendly work-around to Media Viewer. - S201676 (talk) 17:51, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Again, proving my point. Thanks ;-) --Millbart (talk) 16:04, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

This kind of encapsulates what's going wrong here

The lead image on South American dreadnought race with Media Viewer is ... troubled.

• Why must I see a blurry image while it loads?
• There's two separate captions given in MV. The first is from the article; the second is from Commons. For the most part, they say the same thing. Why are they placed together with no divider?
  • And just why does a frame cut off the caption so that I have to scroll to read the second paragraph?
• Why doesn't clicking on the image bring me to the Commons image page?
• Why does clicking on "public domain" bring me to the Commons image page? Would I be better served with the image linking to Commons, and "public domain" leading to an explanation of what that is?
• Speaking of Commons, why is the link to it so small? Why must I scroll down to see it? (oh sorry, I missed the tiny icon on the bottom right)
• The source blurb is cut off, although to be fair, this image's source is lengthy.
• "Created on 1909": minor grammar point, but why try to make this a sentence? "Created: 1909" Ed  21:21, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

As if constructing a sentence based on a date format is hard! — Scott • talk 20:29, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Central notice?

Has this RfC been advertised anywhere? I've been half-following the Media Viewer stuff, but I only happened across this today because someone mentioned to me that it existed. It looks like a pretty small group that's been participating here so far, and since this would be a sitewide change it could probably benefit from as much input as possible. Especially because lately it seems to be just a handful of people here going over the same ground again and again (and getting more and more frustrated with each other's answers...)! Has there been any discussion of putting this on a central notice or something to attract more comment? A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 20:11, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

@Fluffernutter:, I did see this, and to be honest, I felt that the amount of response that was coming in was pretty high, and assumed that (before or after your comment) it had been adequately advertised. I don't have a ton of experience with RfCs, so I didn't realize it was possible this level of participation could be considered too minimal to be significant. In hindsight, I should have paid more attention. My apologies. -Pete (talk) 02:01, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Update 20 June

I did a run-through at United States and found that all of my objections/reservations/wish list were met. Thanks. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 07:52, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

@TheVirginiaHistorian: Great, I'm glad it all got worked out for you and thanks for the feedback that helped make it possible. Happy editing to you. Keegan (WMF) (talk) 18:15, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Response to the Media Viewer RfC

Thanks for sharing your comments about Media Viewer.

The Wikimedia Foundation appreciates feedback about features we develop, and we respectfully acknowledge this group’s proposal to disable Media Viewer on the English Misplaced Pages.

After carefully reviewing this proposal, we recommend that Media Viewer remain enabled on the English Misplaced Pages, for a number of reasons:

• We believe that an RfC of this type is not representative of our much wider user base.
• Readers in particular are not represented at all in this kind of discussion, and they are a key user group for this feature.
• Media Viewer was developed with extensive community guidance from a more diverse user base for over a year, through beta testing, online discussions, usability studies and other feedback channels.

Media Viewer provides important benefits to users:

• Larger images: this tool shows images more prominently, with a single click.
• Faster image load: files are shown twice as fast as the previous solution, since you don’t have to go to a separate page.
• Easier browsing: more users click on the next and previous buttons than on thumbnails, increasing overall image views.
• Better use of space: less scrolling is required to find information, due to a more compact layout.

Other factors were considered in reaching this decision:

• Media Viewer is a central part of our strategy and vision to modernize our multimedia software and user experience.
• As recognized by the Misplaced Pages:Consensus policy, software development is not subject to the same policies which bind English Misplaced Pages editors.
• Users who do not want this feature can easily turn it off, and only a small percentage of English Misplaced Pages users have chosen to opt out so far. We encourage users who don't like Media Viewer to disable it.

Overall, we believe that Media Viewer’s benefits far outweigh its downsides. And while the feature still has some limitations, we have collectively identified practical ways to improve it over time.

We deeply appreciate your help in making this tool better and we hope that more users will come to value this feature as a result. Thank you so much for your feedback. Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 17:45, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Representation for all users

Look, I don't see why no one sets this RFC to appear at Special:Watchlist or something, and because of this, it is misrepresentative of all editors. Only the ones who dislike Media Viewer or are on the Village pump are likely to see this. Dustin (talk) 17:54, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Wow. Just wow. As a reader, I want Media Viewer disabled by default. All the readers that responded to the RfC didn't like it. A majority of the people in your survey on the English Misplaced Pages, which I assume more readers than editors responded to, said Media Viewer IS NOT USEFUL. Friends, who also don't edit Misplaced Pages either, have commented on just how terrible and useless Media Viewer is. They were all surprised when I told them there is a way to turn it off because they couldn't find it. Look, I get that you like your ugly baby. It goes without saying that you recommend keeping it enabled--you rolled it out after all. But seriously, stop ignoring feedback just because it doesn't come from the imaginary readers who actually like this. You DO NOT SPEAK FOR ME when you say this is an improvement for readers. You DO NOT SPEAK FOR ME when you say people like me want this. And stop insulting everyone by ignoring the strong majority opinion that Media Viewer should be disabled. I was reading up last night on the Visual Editor debacle that a few people mentioned in this RfC. Taking a page from that incident, if you refuse to implement the consensus in this RfC, perhaps the administrators should implement the consensus in a manner similar to how they did with the Visual Editor. --98.207.91.246 (talk) 18:19, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Why is everyone ignoring me? (This wasn't to the IP) Dustin (talk) 18:21, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

I made the same point some time ago, Dustin V. S.. Then, as now, no one seemed interested in taking time out of their busy fighting schedule to bother with it. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 21:21, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

I have brought up similar points a month ago as well, but I received few little, if any (I cannot remember) responses. Thank you at least for responding. Dustin (talk) 21:25, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

While I agree it should have been on the watchlists, it's worth pointing out it was put on WP:CENT. That's how I found out about it. How do you put stuff on the watchlists anyway? BethNaught (talk) 21:28, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

A fine question. I always figured it was through one of the MediaWiki namespace pages, but I don't know. Dustin (talk) 21:30, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

• Hi Dustin and Fluffernutter: Thanks for suggesting that this RfC doesn't represent the views of the wider editor community, which is one of our key concerns. Another major concern is that this type of RfC provides insufficient representation for readers, who are typically uncomfortable participating on talk pages: another communication channel would be needed to make an informed decision about the value of this feature for its primary users. To address this concern, we are open to discussing a wider outreach to all users, if enough community members are interested in collaborating with us to collect feedback that would include a representative percentage of readers and editors. For example, we could show a one-time form to all users when they open Media Viewer, asking them if they want to keep the feature enabled or not, now that they have tried it. This would engage a lot more users than an RfC, with better representation, and without the self-selection bias of an optional survey. The form design, methodology and acceptance criteria could be jointly determined by a task force of community and foundation members, working together in good faith. But this would be a significant effort for us, and we would only consider it if enough stakeholders were willing to be bound by the results -- including some of the most vocal detractors on this RfC. Personally, I think would be a worthwhile experiment, because if this method proves successful, it could be used to arbitrate future disputes for major software features. What do you guys think? Is it worth pursuing this idea, as a possible path towards conflict resolution? Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) 01:39, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

• Such a study would have been nice before you rolled Media Viewer out. As it stands, the rather flawed (in your favor) survey says that only 37% of readers found Media Viewer useful. You didn't ask if the readers preferred Media Viewer to the previous file page, only if it was useful. This RfC was also dismal. Combined, this makes your study unnecessary. Media Viewer, in its current state, should not be enabled by default. How about you follow the consensus here and disable Media Viewer by default, do a whole lot more development and testing, and then run the study you propose to convince the community to change its mind? --98.207.91.246 (talk) 02:36, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
• Please do not try to suggest that the response received from the RfC can be simply invalidated because you think it was biased in terms of who gave a response. It has been pointed out numerous times that the wording of the surveys originally used to justify MediaViewer was biased, that the presentation of the tool - looking at a gallery of images - was not representative of reading Misplaced Pages (and though I am highly critical of MV, I do think it can be a useful tool for looking at galleries or a progression of images), and that the statisitics presented were in various ways manipulated to support the MV project. Maybe your sample size (some 15000 readers and editors from various languages of Misplaced Pages if I recall correctly) was larger than that of the RfC, but considering how many terrible flaws MV had on rollout day (and still possesses), I cannot say that that extra size did you any good. Point being: If the RfC was non-representative, then so have the methodologies employed by the MediaViewer development team, and for the RfC page to be disregarded so easily comes off a bit hypocritical. That said, I'll give the benefit of the doubt on assuming good faith: tell us how you think we can best gauge the community's thoughts in a representative way, and ensure us that the will of the community (and each wikipedia community separtely given the non-uniformity of opinions of MV across languages) will be respected. - S201676 (talk) 02:41, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Decision for local administrators

As far as I can tell, putting the following code into MediaWiki:Common.js should do the trick:

mw.config.set("wgMediaViewerOnClick", false);

This makes the decision to enable or disable Media Viewer within the purview of local site administrators. There are a variety of ways to make this code conditional, such as only applying it to users who use a particular skin (Vector, Monobook, etc.), users who are in a particular user group (autoconfirmed, sysop, etc.), users with a specified edit count or account registration date, and much more! Hope that helps. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:15, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks @MZMcBride: - I've now done that. Testing to make sure it worked right. Please let me know if I got anything wrong. -Pete (talk) 20:04, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

And I've reverted it. Please see Fabrice's explanation above.--Eloquence* 20:10, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Context for anyone following along: @Eloquence: is Erik Möller, Deputy Director and Vice President of Engineering and Product Development for the Wikimedia Foundation, the organization that developed the Media Viewer software. He stated elsewhere that this decision reflects an official Wikimedia Foundation action. -Pete (talk) 21:49, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Fabrice's excuse for ignoring this RfC does not explain or justify your actions. How can you justify your defiance of community consensus? It's not like the RfC is telling the developers to do anything. It's simply disabling code that the community has concluded should be disabled by default. Please undo your reversion. --98.207.91.246 (talk) 20:25, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

If that is ever restored, please make it so that I can enable it back without fussing with gadgets. That code disables it for everyone, regardless of their preferences. Matma Rex talk 20:19, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

That code should never be reinserted ever again! That breaks a core feature for readers and prevented those who do want it from re-enabling it. That was a site-breaking change, and if Eloquence didn't beat me to it, I would have reverted it myself. -- ] {{talk}} 20:31, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Edokter: Hi. Can you please explain what you mean by "breaks a core feature for readers"? I don't follow. Can you also please explain exactly how the addition of this line of code "was a site-breaking change"? You seem to be suggesting that this line of code broke the entire site and that seems pretty extreme. Please elaborate, with or without emphasis. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:20, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

That code disabled the onClick event for Media Viewer with no way to bypass it. Instead of disabling it "by default", it completely disabled it for everyone. The MediaViewer option in Preferences would have no effect anymore, and the only way to re-enable it would be to negate this code in your private javascript page. MediaViewer being a core feature for all readers means just that; it is a default software feature, one that can easily be disabled by users. This change completely broke it with no way of re-enabling it. -- ] {{talk}} 23:51, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

If you want to change the configuration, you should disable it in the proper way and ask for a site configuration change on bugzilla with a description of the change that you want taken and referencing what you consider to be the consensus established on the mediawiki instance in question.. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 20:51, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Indeed. File a site request, link the RfC and poke greg-g in IRC. -- Rillke (talk) 21:06, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

The WMF developers who might respond to such a request work for Erik (user @Eloquence: above), so I don't suggest filing a bug at this point. Nathan 21:31, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Although Erik Möller is the Deputy Director; Vice President of Engineering and Product Development, I am optimistic that he will accept almost any decision by a person whose job is to deal with this kind of request on a regular basis; perhaps it needs a slightly longer explanation as usual but letting the software engineers fiddle out a good solution for this problem is better than edit warring and also shows willingness to communicate with each other. -- Rillke (talk) 22:25, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm happy to file a bug request, but may not be able to do so until tomorrow. I'd encourage anyone motivated to do so. Since the consensus reached was no surprise, and was pretty apparent as the most likely outcome weeks ago, I would hope that there are some more sophisticated thoughts out there about how to implement it without the problems associated with the Javascript implementation I attempted. -Pete (talk) 22:32, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

I see no easy way doing this in JavaScript; as long as it is enabled by default, you would always disable it for all users, including those who like it :( -- Rillke (talk) 22:57, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

OK. So, "enabled by default" is an option that (on a technical level) could be easily disabled? If that is the case, it sounds like the bug could be handled by anyone with the needed permissions, who is willing to implement the English Misplaced Pages's consensus, in spite of the Wikimedia Foundation's recommendation against it. On a technical level, is that accurate, @Rillke:? -Pete (talk) 23:41, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

It's not more than $wgDefaultUserOptions = 0; wrapped in a conditional in CommonSettings.php; rolling back to the previous state as beta feature ($wmgMediaViewerBeta) is also an option. So far from the technical side for all interested in Wikimedia-MediaWiki configuration. This all is just hypothetical. -- Rillke (talk) 01:43, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Rillke and TheDJ: Filed as bugzilla:67826. Are we taking bets on that bug's resolution? :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 22:39, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. I was never a friend of gambling. -- Rillke (talk) 22:57, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

RESOLVED as WONTFIX. It looks like we shall need to continue with local admins taking action to enforce this RfC because the Wikimedia foundation won't cooperate. --98.207.91.246 (talk) 00:33, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

• Hi MZMcBride and Pete: We understand that you are frustrated by our concerns about the reliability of this small RfC. But your rush to disable Media Viewer without further discussion seems premature and counter-productive. I would recommend that we look for a more reasonable way to resolve our differences, instead of escalating this conflict. I am sorry that Eloquence had to revert you, but your unilateral disabling of the feature would have removed it for many users who find it valuable, which is unacceptable to us. Other comments on this thread from Matma Rex, Edokter, TheDJ and Rillke seem to support this view. Would you be willing to engage in 'peace talks' to find a mutually acceptable resolution? For example, what do you think of the idea of a more representative outreach, as outlined in the Representation for all users thread above? If we put our minds to it and work in good faith, I think we could find a better way to address our differences. Fabrice Florin (WMF) (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 02:11, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

• Fabrice Florin (WMF), you owe us an immediate explanation: why do you say that this was a unilateral action? This action was taken as a method of implementing broad community consensus. You and Eloquence have given the community the finger; you have told us that we must submit to your will; we have had extensive discussion, and yet you pretend that it was done unilaterally and without sufficient discussion. We have no need of liars; do us a favor and resign your position. Nyttend (talk) 02:47, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

@Fabrice Florin (WMF): Before we go any further, your talk of an "edit war" is preposterous. I was reverted once, it was pointed out that my action had accomplished more than I intended, and I did not make the change again. @Eloquence: acknowledged his mistake in introducing the concept of an edit war, but apparently somehow the notion got through to you that there was an edit war, in the five minutes before it was clearly established that there was no edit war. We do not need this kind of drama; please stop using such inflammatory language here. Striking this, because I see Fabrice had reverted this part of his comment just before I posted. Never mind this part, I see it was an honest mistake. -Pete (talk) 03:43, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Furthermore, you continue to talk about personal emotions: "we understand that you are frustrated." Frustration is not a relevant component of what is going on here. As I clearly stated in the Commons RFC, votes of the format "I Don't Like It" are utterly useless and should be ignored. My position is not one of personal frustration; my position derives from my understanding of what readers and infrequent editors need, and the negative impacts this software will have on our shared goal to help people get involved in our project of freely sharing knowledge. If you read my comments, you would understand that. Please stop misrepresenting my position.

Finally: I had no idea this RfC would be regarded as "small." To my thinking, it seemed unwise to try to demand the attention of hundreds of users in order to make a point that seemed pretty clear based on the smaller sample. But I understand that this sample isn't big enough for you. If a bigger RfC is needed, that can probably be arranged. But -- in spite of the many concerns raised about the methodology you employed to reach conclusions about how the software is received -- are you truly confident that the result will be different? That is the part that really boggles my mind. -Pete (talk) 02:54, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Fabrice, I'm glad to hear you're interested in coming to a solution. If your concern is that "readers" are not well-represented by an RfC, I'm sure we can agree that editors are. As a first step, could we agree to disable Media Viewer by default for logged-in editors, with the preference toggle available for those who do want it? It's clear that the vast majority of editor participants here did not want this enabled by default. Seraphimblade 03:25, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

There are about 125,000 logged-in users who have made an edit on the English Misplaced Pages in the last 30 days. That would yield a representation ratio of 0.06%. --Tgr (talk) 07:35, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

@Fabrice Florin (WMF): "unilateral disabling of the feature would have removed it for many users who find it valuable, which is unacceptable to us" How do you know the real numbers who find it valuable when you've added it with force? Opt-in would give you the real numbers, not a forced-in feature (I've had to make some changes to hide it, your disable doesn't work).

WMF isn't helping itself with retention, and it is clear that Erik and yourself are just concerned about yourselves when you state that it was "unacceptable to us" but totally ignoring those who have stated their views in this RfC, which is totally unacceptable to us as a community to be treated like sheep. So far the development of VE, Flow and MV has been very poor and one questions at how much of donors money has been spent on tools/features that have created a massive distrust in the community with the WMF. Bidgee (talk) 07:47, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Trust was broken

• After this decision and explanation, there is nothing more we can do except express our indignation. After all, the decision was already made when those cosmetic surveys were launched on various wikis, and quickly removed when their output didn’t show the expected approval. Maybe the WMF has the power to do whatever they consider to be best for the project. But, please, do not insult our intelligence by stating that such change has a wide support among the users. After this regrettable episode, it is no longer possible to assume good faith from the team lead by Fabrice Floren. Trust was broken between WMF and the community of editors and I very much doubt that things will ever come back to what they were before. Alvesgaspar (talk) 21:30, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

It is possible to assume good faith, when you consider that to many people those who supported deactivation in this RfC (myself included) must look like utter tossers. The WMF is quite possibly steamrollering this through for the perceived good of the wiki, as is the case with VE and Flow. And it is true that this RfC could have been more representative. Mentioning it, was trust really ever restored after the VE fiasco? Not being around at the time I'm not aware of what the atmosphere was like. BethNaught (talk) 21:37, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Unfortunately, this RfC statement should probably have noted WP:CONEXCEPT, so you might not feel you look that way now. It was only ever going to be advisory. Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:14, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Correct me if I'm wrong (I'm really new to this), but I don't think that applies. The change that implemented this RfC earlier today was a change to a page on Misplaced Pages, something the WMF doesn't have authority over except by WP:OFFICE, which doesn't seem to apply here. In this case, while the WMF isn't beholden to the RfC, it has no right to keep administrators from implementing it. If WP:CONEXCEPT does apply, it looks like the claimed exception is a relatively recent addition added unilaterally by the WMF and not reflective of any consensus or foundational principle. Arguably, then, it's no real policy at all. --98.207.91.246 (talk) 01:26, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

98..: I think your reasoning is generally sound, but I do want to correct you on one point -- properly implementing this consensus is apparently beyond the technical ability of a mere administrator. What I attempted seems to have made it impossible for anyone to enable the feature, but the consensus only said we wanted to have the default state be disabled. I do think there are developers with this ability who are not Wikimedia Foundation staff, but I do not think it's accurate to say that Misplaced Pages administrators are able to implement the decision alone. -Pete (talk) 01:36, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Real policy? We normally read what's real policy in Policy, like WP:CON. Policy is meant to describe the way things are. This technical issue seems to have been determined that way. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:45, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Indeed, this is beyond the ability of a mere administrator. We need a bureaucrat here, to desysop Eloquence for a blatant WP:INVOLVED violation. Nyttend (talk) 02:54, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Not commenting on the rest of this, but since Eloquence is a member of the staff group, no en.wikipedia adminship is needed. --Rschen7754 03:37, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

But he also has an en.wp sysop flag, dating back from before RFA existed. That we can (and should) take from him, even if only as a symbolic indication of no confidence. MER-C 06:16, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Under what policy? Bureaucrats cannot remove the sysop flag except for inactivity, death, on request from ArbCom, and a resignation. --Rschen7754 08:06, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Only option is Misplaced Pages:Requests for de-adminship, even then he has staff tools (WMF would need to remove them) and he didn't really misuse his sysop tools (he only made a threat to use his staff tools ), so I see very little use. Bidgee (talk) 08:21, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Hello Fabrice. Above, you make some claims I am afraid I have to question partially. I have lived with the MediaViewer the past weeks and was happy to find in your post a way how to turn it off. With all respect and conscience for the necessity to improve Misplaced Pages, I make here a list of points I did not find answered:

• You say "that Media Viewer’s benefits far outweigh its downsides". Could you elaborate on the downsides from your point of view?
• You say it "provides important benefits to users". What do you mean by "users", active (authors) or passive (readers) ones? What are the benefits for authors like me? I only experienced the MediaViewer as an unpleasant disturbance of my work flow. Often I need to know the exact file name of a picture on Commons, to mark and copy-and-paste the file name for my article wiki text. The MediaViewer does not provide me this exact file name (the ending for the file type is missing). Clicking on the Commons button just takes more time. When I teach editing Misplaced Pages in my lessons, this turned out negativeley as well because you have to explain to the students extra things. (Btw, for picturing Misplaced Pages articles I never browse through the pictures of a Commons category picture by picture, I want to see the whole overview and then pick what I want.)
• You say that pictures are seen quicker. I see pictures often less quickly, because it needs time to load larger files. Until full load of the image I only see blurr.
• You say that only a few editors have disabled the MediaViewer. Possibly, because most of them did not know about how to disable it, like me?
• You say that the editors have been approached for feedback. In April I made this comment never to get a reaction. In it, I say that it is not made essentially easier for people unfamiliar with our ways to reuse an image correctly.
• You say that browsing pictures is easier. On my tablet, it isn't. When I pinch in a picture and want to see the lower parts, the part with the information shoves above, so I can never see the lower part of a picture this way.
• You say that you will not follow the outcome of this vote because passive users are not represented here. Under what circonstances would a vote on Misplaced Pages (any Misplaced Pages version) change your mind? Do you think that in these cases users' votings are irrelevant at all? On German Misplaced Pages they want to start a voting, but some feel that the WMF will not follow anyway. I know that we Wikipedians are often people who don't like changes, but your words sound to me like: the opinion of Wikipedians does not count in general, because there is something wrong with these people. I can imagine that this will not improve the relationship between WMF and community.

So, I got the impression, Fabrice, that the main target group of the MediaViewer is the passive reader of Misplaced Pages articles, not the editor who is creating the content. Is this impression correct? Then, wouldn't it make more sense to enable the MediaViewer for unregistered users, and disable it (opt-in) for registered ones?

These are some to-the-point-questions, but I love to see you again in Wikimania! Ziko (talk) 12:52, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Wikimedia-l discussion

There is also discussion happening about this RfC and related issues on Wikimedia-l. The thread starts here. As I said in my post a few minutes ago: "Just a note that I am drafting a request to the Board about governance of WMF product launches. Similar problems have happened enough times that I think the Board needs to step in with a more active role. I am also taking a look at the policies around office actions as they relate to product launches, and will likely request that the Board examine that policy as well." --Pine 08:16, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

If WMF can over rule the community, don't you think that it is a little pointless? I don't think the WMF would care what the community thinks (I think it is already clear with VE, Flow and now MV) and would ignore any such governance regarding product launches. Bidgee (talk) 08:26, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Where was this RFC advertised?

Honest question. I haven't seen it until the drama that started yesterday after someone concluded that the RfC is finished. Matma Rex talk 11:12, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

+1 Thats is also a critic point of the WMF, only the "wrong people" have seen it. I do not even know that there exists something like RfC (on the En-WP). → User: Perhelion  14:25, 11 July 2014 (UTC)