IRC office hours/Office hours 2013-12-03

Chat on VisualEditor
Tuesday 4 December 2013
0100 - 0200 UTC
[00:58:28] * James_F  waves.

[00:59:53] * AnnaKoval  waves back :)

[01:00:04] * marktraceur  particles

[01:00:07] <AnnaKoval>	 Shall we begin? :)

[01:00:17] <James_F>	 Sure.

[01:00:58] <James_F>	 Soâ€¦

[01:01:07] <James_F>	 I did an office hours about 6 hours ago.

[01:01:16] <James_F>	 I don't think the log is up yet, sadly.

[01:01:36] <AnnaKoval>	 Welcome everyone to this office hour on VE :)

[01:01:44] <James_F>	 But mostly it was just me answering questions - there wasn't a "big reveal", this is just our regular monthly round of these.

[01:01:45] <Jan_telco1>	 it is

[01:01:50] <AnnaKoval>	 Actually I believe it is :)

[01:01:54] * marktraceur  cracks the topic whip at James_F

[01:02:06] <AnnaKoval>	 thanks Jan_telco1 :)

[01:02:21] <James_F>	 marktraceur: s/ext/ow/g done.

[01:02:28] <Jan_telco1>	 http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours/Office_hours_2013-12-02 <- afaik

[01:02:28] <marktraceur>	 Bah

[01:02:32] <James_F>	 Aha.

[01:02:34] <marktraceur>	 You've topicappended it

[01:02:40] * marktraceur  OCDs all over James_F

[01:02:43] <James_F>	 Well, awesome.

[01:02:52] <AnnaKoval>	 Yes. Thanks. :)

[01:02:58] <James_F>	 marktraceur: Better?

[01:03:00] <James_F>	 OK, anyway.

[01:03:04] <AnnaKoval>	 Any questions for James_F on the topic of VE?

[01:03:07] <James_F>	 Everyone can go and read that log if they want.

[01:03:20] <James_F>	 Or not and just ask questions. :-)

[01:03:32] <AnnaKoval>	 And eel free to private msg me and I'll keep track.

[01:03:46] <James_F>	 Since then, we threw the switch to enable VisualEditor by default ("opt-out") for the 102 Wikipedias that were in "phase 3".

[01:03:50] <AnnaKoval>	 oops^feel not eel

[01:04:02] * werdna  eels

[01:04:06] <werdna>	 freely, of course.

[01:04:11] <werdna>	 cause that's the wikimedia way

[01:04:38] <James_F>	 But other than that, we've just been plugging away.

[01:04:44] <James_F>	 Soâ€¦ questions?

[01:04:48] <marktraceur>	 James_F: Yrrrrs

[01:05:08] <AnnaKoval>	 James_F, lacking specific questions, why don't you talk more about the switch flipping today? :)

[01:06:00] <James_F>	 Err.

[01:06:03] <James_F>	 Well, not much to say.

[01:06:13] <James_F>	 For those wikis involved, of course it's a big change.

[01:06:31] <James_F>	 The largest of them (by far) was Portuguese, but there were 101 others.

[01:06:59] <James_F>	 We also enabled opt-in testing of VisualEditor on the Swedish Wiktionary, and on the Swedish chapter's wiki, by request.

[01:07:14] <James_F>	 Which is the first time VE has been enabled on a non-testing, non-Wikipedia public wiki.

[01:07:21] <James_F>	 So feedback will be very helpful.

[01:07:46] <AnnaKoval>	 Any feedback yet?

[01:08:23] <James_F>	 So far, no, but it's only been a couple of hours.

[01:09:07] <James_F>	 You can see e.g. ptwiki VisualEditor edits here: https://pt.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?namespace=&tagfilter=visualeditor&title=Especial%3AMudan%C3%A7as+recentes

[01:10:01] <James_F>	 Anyway.

[01:10:11] * James_F  watches the dustbowl.

[01:10:19] <James_F>	 No questions at all? :-(

[01:10:20] <AnnaKoval>	 thanks :)

[01:11:29] <AnnaKoval>	 Dragonfly6-7 had an interesting question in your earlier office hour...

[01:11:36] <greg-g>	 So, what's your favorite pizza topping?

[01:11:49] <werdna>	 I'm sort of curious about how everything's going in general, but I haven't read any of the project updates so I feel like I'd just be asking you to type them out over and over again.

[01:11:52] <James_F>	 Mushrooms. And goat's cheese.

[01:11:57] <James_F>	 werdna: :-)

[01:12:00] <kaldari>	 capers, each one is a little mystery

[01:12:01] <werdna>	 outstanding choice James_F

[01:12:13] <werdna>	 My only problem is

[01:12:19] <werdna>	 I add all these toppings to my paper

[01:12:22] <werdna>	 pizza*

[01:12:27] <werdna>	 and there isn't mush room for anything else

[01:12:43] <James_F>	 Anyway.

[01:12:46] <AnnaKoval>	 lol werdna :)

[01:12:47] <James_F>	 So, status-wise.

[01:12:53] <AnnaKoval>	 Really? No questions?

[01:13:03] <James_F>	 Right now VisualEditor is in the middle of a period of fixing bugs and improving performance.

[01:13:07] <AnnaKoval>	 Besides' werdna's. Sorry. :)

[01:13:14] <werdna>	 :P

[01:13:19] <James_F>	 We're working on new features a bit, too, but not as much as just improving things generally.

[01:13:22] <AnnaKoval>	 How so, JamesF?

[01:13:30] <werdna>	 what is your game plan wrt enwp?

[01:13:56] <kaldari>	 when is VisualEditor going to support WikiText ;)

[01:14:01] <James_F>	 Also "missing" features that people expect, like rich pasting from external sources (coming to MediaWiki.org on Thursday!) or image option editing (not on Thursday!).

[01:14:06] <werdna>	 \o/

[01:14:42] <werdna>	 One thing I'm wondering about â€“Â I'm sure it's been suggested before â€“Â is allowing power users to type simple syntax in themselves and get what they expect out â€“Â particularly links.

[01:14:53] <kaldari>	 James_F: actual question, when does vertical editing go live?

[01:14:54] <werdna>	 I'd much rather type [[User:Werdna|that asshole]] than click through the link dialogs.

[01:15:12] <werdna>	 but maybe that's a power user thing that you're not targetting, I dunno.

[01:15:47] <James_F>	 werdna: So we've discussed that at length, and we've essentially decided that a mark-up based system (even one which magically converts it to HTML) is MediaWiki's job, and is not the right fit for a rich editor.

[01:16:15] <werdna>	 mmmm, I think it would be neat if you at least had keyboard shortcuts for linking

[01:16:26] <James_F>	 werdna: There's some possibility of some very limited exceptions to that, but I don't think we want to get into the habit of magically replacing what users type with what we "think" they wanted us to do.

[01:16:47] <werdna>	 for me, in Flow, I actually switched off VE because there was too much mousework involved in doing basic stuff that you have to do in every post.

[01:16:53] <werdna>	 I mean, I don't mind if it's not a magic replacement

[01:16:55] <kaldari>	 werdna: perhaps someone could write a gadget for this?

[01:17:02] <James_F>	 werdna: No mouse is neededâ€¦

[01:17:05] <legoktm>	 werdna: there are keyboard shortcuts iirc...

[01:17:10] <werdna>	 well, I haven't figured out the keyboard shortcuts yet :D

[01:17:25] <werdna>	 you could do smart hints like I had in LQT (yes, I am using LQT as a *positive* example :o)

[01:17:27] <James_F>	 werdna: Hover over the buttons. The shortcuts display themselves in the tooltips. :-P

[01:17:46] <werdna>	 if somebody types [[User:X|Y]] you could have a popup that says "Psst? Want to make a link? Try Ctrl-K or whatever"

[01:17:50] * James_F  refuses to listen to the crazy person that thinks LQT is a positive example. :-)

[01:17:55] <werdna>	 :D

[01:17:55] <kaldari>	 lol

[01:18:15] <werdna>	 It looks like you're trying to make a link

[01:18:18] <werdna>	 would you like some help?

[01:18:18] <James_F>	 Well, we could do that - right now we put up the wikitext warning box, which isn't ideal.

[01:18:21] <werdna>	 nod

[01:18:22] <AnnaKoval>	 legoktm could you share a link to those shortcuts please?

[01:18:22] <James_F>	 Yeah, clippy.

[01:18:24] * James_F  sighs.

[01:18:24] <werdna>	 well, that's a start.

[01:18:38] <legoktm>	 AnnaKoval: [05:17:27 PM] <James_F>	 werdna: Hover over the buttons. The shortcuts display themselves in the tooltips. :-P

[01:18:44] <Eloquence>	 yeah - ideally everything in VE should be fast and keyboard-accessible. not everything is yet, but the basic functions are.

[01:18:48] <legoktm>	 i have no idea what they are off the top of my head.

[01:18:59] <Eloquence>	 templates are still a nightmare, but I think they'll get better soon ;-)

[01:19:06] <werdna>	 I'm not trying to second guess your design, it's just that this was a pain point for me â€“Â I was used to being able to link and so on very quickly just using mystery markup that nobody knows

[01:19:10] <AnnaKoval>	 thanks legoktm. i'm still sorta new here. :)

[01:19:15] <werdna>	 :)

[01:19:27] <AnnaKoval>	 That's good to hear, Eloquence!

[01:19:38] <James_F>	 https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor/Portal/Keyboard_shortcuts

[01:19:46] <James_F>	 But there's some new ones I've not added yet.

[01:19:54] <James_F>	 Superscript is Ctrl+,

[01:20:00] <James_F>	 Subscript is Ctrl+.

[01:20:12] <James_F>	 Save will be coming soon as well.

[01:20:13] <James_F>	 Etc.

[01:20:16] <AnnaKoval>	 Thanks, James_F! kaldari asked an actual question earlier: when does vertical editing go live?

[01:21:23] <James_F>	 So VE currently supports languages which are LTR (e.g. English) RTL (e.g. Arabic), obviously.

[01:21:51] <James_F>	 But we also support TTB languages too, like Mongolian.

[01:22:22] <James_F>	 TTB is "Top To Bottom" - i.e. instead of going across the page and then down, they go down and then across.

[01:22:59] <James_F>	 Right now you can't make selections of text TTB or RTL, but support for that (what we call the "language inspector") is coming very soon for in-line selections, and slightly-less-soon for block selections.

[01:23:17] <James_F>	 We'll roll that out as a Beta Feature opt-in tool for testing at first, of course.

[01:23:27] <James_F>	 And get feedback from the community

[01:23:43] <James_F>	 I know that some wikis are particularly keen to get it ASAP, like Hebrew.

[01:24:29] <AnnaKoval>	 Good to know.

[01:24:33] <AnnaKoval>	 James_F, werdna asked: what is your game plan wrt enwp?

[01:24:36] <James_F>	 Then there's a wider question about whether we want to expand language direction support in MediaWiki, given that we now have a sane way to edit it. :-)

[01:24:51] <James_F>	 Yeah.

[01:24:55] <James_F>	 Soâ€¦ enwiki.

[01:25:09] <James_F>	 We don't have a particular "game plan" for the English Wikipedia.

[01:25:33] <James_F>	 Right now we're busy fixing and improving VisualEditor, and rolling it out to additional wikis.

[01:26:08] <James_F>	 Obviously at some point soon we should start discussing the grounds for re-enabling it by default on the English Wikipedia, as that's an important wiki to us, but it's far from our only concern.

[01:26:27] <James_F>	 There's also German and Dutch Wikipedias, of course. Let's not focus only on English.

[01:26:56] <AnnaKoval>	 Good point.

[01:27:08] <AnnaKoval>	 Just wanted to acknowledge the question. :)

[01:27:09] <Risker>	 James_F,. before you even consider enabling by default in any of these wikis, you need to have it good enough that it can be equally prominent as wikitext editor

[01:27:13] <werdna>	 James_F: make it so good that enwiki begs for it back, right? :)

[01:27:14] <James_F>	 Soâ€¦ not much of an answer.

[01:27:15] <AnnaKoval>	 Hi Risker :)

[01:27:15] <Risker>	 and it's not close yet.

[01:27:23] * Risker  waves at AnnaKoval

[01:27:27] <James_F>	 Risker: That's, of course, a subjective judgement, however.

[01:28:06] <Eloquence>	 I'm hoping the new citations UX will be a big win for enwiki users

[01:28:10] <James_F>	 Risker: There's no magic device that will go "ping" when VisualEditor is "good enough".

[01:28:12] <Risker>	 well, until tables and references are as easy on VE as they are on Vector

[01:28:17] <Risker>	 you're not there yet

[01:28:25] <James_F>	 Risker: On Vector?

[01:28:35] <Eloquence>	 Risker, work on citations is underway -- and very high priority :)

[01:28:40] <Risker>	 Vector using wikitext.....the references are tons easier to do

[01:29:04] <James_F>	 Risker: You mean the toolbar gadget that enwiki wrote and didn't share with other wikis? :-) Yeah, as you know well we've been working on that for a while.

[01:29:28] <Eloquence>	 It's a cool gadget, shared or not.

[01:29:30] <Risker>	 you mean the toolbar gadget that nobody else bothered to borrow?

[01:29:38] <Eloquence>	 And sets a high bar of usability to follow.

[01:29:45] <Eloquence>	 We're nowhere close yet, and it's important to acknowledge that.

[01:30:00] <James_F>	 There is a lot left to do, indeed.

[01:30:44] <AnnaKoval>	 Just wanted to post a link to the log to today's earlier office hours

[01:30:46] <AnnaKoval>	 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours/Office_hours_2013-12-02

[01:30:58] <Risker>	 I am still extremely confused about how the team is defining its target user group.

[01:31:22] <James_F>	 Risker: The target user group is everyone, still. Why?

[01:31:52] <Risker>	 well, that contradicts above, where people who want lots of shortcuts and technical tweaks aren't the target

[01:32:02] <James_F>	 I didn't say they weren't the target.

[01:32:18] * James_F  is lost.

[01:32:31] <Risker>	 "everyone" is not a target group.

[01:32:48] <James_F>	 And yet it's the exact same target group that the wikitext editor targets.

[01:32:52] <Risker>	 what editor group was VE desiged to accommodate at first blush

[01:33:02] <Risker>	 *designed

[01:33:04] <James_F>	 I'm not sure meaningless product groups are a worthwhile focus.

[01:33:12] <kaldari>	 James_F, Risker, Eloquence: Actually there are a few wikis that have ported the RefToolbar gadget

[01:33:24] <Risker>	 doesn't surprise me, kaldari

[01:33:24] <Eloquence>	 kaldari, awesome :)

[01:33:32] <James_F>	 kaldari: 31, IIRC. Or, in other words, 870 haven't got it.

[01:33:38] <James_F>	 Risker: It's designed to be used by humans with computers who want to constructively edit a wiki.

[01:33:53] <Eloquence>	 It's a great gadget - invaluable for content authors

[01:34:17] <James_F>	 It's an impressive tool of its time, yes.

[01:35:00] <AnnaKoval>	 Any other questions for James_F et al?

[01:35:01] <Risker>	 James_F, I'm really sorry that I'm having a hard time making myself understood here.

[01:35:21] <AnnaKoval>	 And I'm sorry I interrupted you, Risker.

[01:35:36] <Eloquence>	 Risker, you can contrast VE with something like Google Docs -- Google Docs doesn't target "new users" or "experienced authors"; its limitations are primarily technical in nature (documents of certain lengths, certain features missing) which somewhat constrain the use cases to which it can be put.

[01:35:53] <Risker>	 well, that's why I don't use google docs.  They're crap.

[01:36:05] <Eloquence>	 In authoring Wikipedia content, there's a very long tail of features that we ultimately must support, and in prioritizing, we obviously ought to focus on the most widely used and most important ones.

[01:36:08] <Eloquence>	 heh, Risker. I disagree :-)

[01:36:17] <Risker>	 everytime someone from the WMF sends me one, I give them a hard time

[01:36:23] <Eloquence>	 I think Google Docs is an awesome product, if proprietary. But that's a matter of opinion.

[01:36:29] <James_F>	 Indeed.

[01:36:30] <Risker>	 they're the only people who use it

[01:36:36] <Eloquence>	 lol, that's ridiculous :)

[01:37:04] <AnnaKoval>	 Other questions about VE?

[01:37:20] <AnnaKoval>	 Or James_F's favorite foods?

[01:37:49] <James_F>	 Oh.

[01:37:55] <James_F>	 Apparently no Risker.

[01:38:07] <James_F>	 :-(

[01:38:07] <AnnaKoval>	 Rubber tortoise? Am I the only one confused by that?

[01:38:12] <AnnaKoval>	 :(

[01:38:16] <James_F>	 AnnaKoval: No, it's a bit random. :-)

[01:38:17] <James_F>	 Anywy.

[01:38:27] <AnnaKoval>	 Yeah, if there's no questions....

[01:38:29] <James_F>	 Any other questions, assuming Risker can't re-connect?

[01:38:34] <AnnaKoval>	 James_F can go get pizza...

[01:38:37] <James_F>	 Ha.

[01:38:40] <James_F>	 Or a salad.

[01:39:08] <James_F>	 No questions? None at all?

[01:39:50] <AnnaKoval>	 Well, if there's no questions...

[01:39:59] <AnnaKoval>	 Sounding the 5 minute warning...

[01:40:18] <AnnaKoval>	 (Could be 5 long, awkward minutes...)

[01:40:26] <James_F>	 Maybe the 5 second warning. ;-)

[01:40:33] <AnnaKoval>	 ;)

[01:40:57] <AnnaKoval>	 All righty then, folks...

[01:41:05] <James_F>	 Thanks everyone.

[01:41:08] <AnnaKoval>	 I'd like to thank you all for stopping by.

[01:41:09] <Coren>	 James_F: Actually, I have one.  Do we* give support to third parties for VE?

[01:41:20] <AnnaKoval>	 Or not... :)

[01:41:23] <Coren>	 In other words, is it a first-class citizen like mw itself?

[01:42:17] <James_F>	 Coren: Yes, VE is for third-party users as well as MW users, though in practice I don't think there are any non-MW re-users yet.

[01:42:33] <James_F>	 Coren: Which reminds me about some slides I need to write for a presentation next monthâ€¦

[01:43:04] <AnnaKoval>	 Thanks, James_F.

[01:43:42] <Coren>	 So there is the intent that there will be a release cycle for VE?

[01:44:04] <Coren>	 (And with that I'm done)

[01:44:15] <AnnaKoval>	 Well, thanks, folks, and if there are no more questions, then we're gonna call it a night/day/whatever it is where you are! :)

[01:44:23] <werdna>	 what about mid-afternoon?

[01:44:28] <James_F>	 Coren: Yeah, something like that. Longer-term consideration.

[01:44:37] <AnnaKoval>	 Works for me, werdna! :)

[01:44:42] <James_F>	 werdna: 12:45 isn't mid-afternoon.

[01:44:55] <werdna>	 heh, considering I woke up at 10:30, you're probably right

[01:45:04] <AnnaKoval>	 James_F: Coren's last question?

[01:45:45] <James_F>	 Thanks everyone.

[01:45:48] <Coren>	 AnnaKoval: I think "something like that" was suitable handwaving in that direction.  I.e.: we intend to, but not now.  :-)

[01:45:56] <James_F>	 AnnaKoval, Coren: Yeah.

[01:46:02] <AnnaKoval>	 All right.

[01:46:11] <James_F>	 We'll work out a release cycle once we've got a non-pre-release.

[01:46:33] <AnnaKoval>	 Take care, everyone. See you at the next VE office hours, time still tbd. :)

[01:46:53] <AnnaKoval>	 I'll post the logs shortly...

[01:47:01] <James_F>	 Thanks. :-)