Board Thread:Wiki Main Forum/@comment-28584497-20160512073409

This must be the third or fourth time I've had to discuss this topic in the last four or five years. Let's take a trip back in time for this, because my history with this subject goes back to when these features were first introduced.

I've been on many wikis. I was around during the introduction of the Oasis skin that replaced the old Monaco. I've tested many of the features accessible through Special:WikiaLabs, of which all three of these features are.

Back then the features in question had many flaws. At various points on various forums, I've discussed them and laid out (sometimes concisely, sometimes not) the reasons why I think they should not be in use here. I've highlighted their flaws, and because they all aim to do the same things the gripes that apply to one generally apply to all of them.

A history lesson. Once upon a time a certain dead admin came back after a long hiatus, and at his impetus the community voted to push one of these new-model features into use.

When the trial was over these changes were reverted.

Among the reasons people voted to revert the changes, my arguments I think were probably one of the most influential. But that's only the most recent case of this back-and-forth. In reality the discussion goes back even to talk pages at various points between 2011 and 2014.

So here, right now, I'm going to lay out all of the problems with these systems. Why they are inferior to their "traditional" counterparts, why they don't fit with this wiki's modus operandi, and why I don't like them myself. These lists are in no particular order.

For simplicity's sake I'll start with the general and move into specific features later.


 * They are unprofessional: This wiki has a strong tradition of professionalism. These new features don't fit with that. They attempt to replicate the feel the blog comment system. In essence, that's what they are; they're almost literally applying a blog layout to key functionality. I would argue that they go against the spirit of BF:WHAT.
 * They are not easily customizable: Unlike the layout of the old talk and forum pages, these are nowhere near as easy to customize. The old layout can be edited by any administrator using normal wiki markup. Editing these new versions requires editing MediaWiki pages which make use of high-level programming languages, which the typical admin can not be expected to know. Now while I can do that, knowing a lot about these languages, I don't think any other administrator here can say the same thing. Not only that, but you can't fully customize them anyway, which segues nicely into my next point.
 * We don't have full control over them: The old layout allowed us nearly unlimited control over all aspects of the pages. With clever coding you could do almost anything. However, with the new features, this is no longer the case. The basic format is mandatory with them. You must have a "topic" and a thread of replies.

Just the message wall:
 * The wiki notifications are still broken: I brought this up every time the subject has come up. Wiki notifications are broken to hell and back for a lot of users. We get phantom messages, or aren't alerted to messages, or are spammed with multiple notifs for the same message. I didn't get a notification for a message left on my wall today. The old system doesn't use the notifications -- it uses an old style pop up notification that is proven effective.
 * It's ambiguous where you should respond: Admittedly, this was a problem even under the old system, but with the message wall most users respond on their own talk page. In the old system you get a notification whenever you get a message on your talk, implying you're supposed to reply on their talk. This doesn't generate a notification unless you are following the thread, I think, and even if it did a lot of users probably wouldn't get it.
 * Autoarchive: I'm pretty sure this is self explanatory. Automatic archiving after an arbitrary number of posts is fucking stupid.

Both message wall and forum:
 * You can't thread replies at all, nor segment off parts of discussion: This is particularly damning to me. With the new system there is no way to organize discussions into logical blocks. With the old, you would thread replies which made it easy to see what is a response to what, or see the general flow of thought processes. The closest the new system has is quoted replies. Which function exactly how they would if you chose to use that format on the old system. But nobody did that because it's illogical. It makes it harder to collaborate efficiently.

Article comments only:
 * Only one level of threading is permitted: It's not as bad as message wall/forum but it still has the same issues as above.
 * It literally turns all articles into blogs: I mean literally. The comment system is the same. Given that the old talk pages are meant for constructive discussion about articles, it's damaging in that these blog comments encourage posts that aren't constructive discussion.

I think I hit all the main points here. Nonspecific gripes apply to all three, and specific gripes to the mentioned feature. I'll add more if I remember something I forgot later.

Now my hope is you guys understand why we should not use these features.

If you do and there is support, I would like to move for two votes: one for reversion of these formats, and another for drafting a new policy that would set these gripes in stone and block future motions for the reimplementation of these systems.

Юра  07:34, May 12, 2016 (UTC) 