MediaWiki talk:Common.js/Archive 6: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 14:36, 16 June 2007

Revision as of 00:01, 30 June 2007

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::For what it's worth, I don't see this addition being worthwhile for Wikipedia, but I posted the code since I had already written it. [[User talk:Mike Dillon|Mike Dillon]] 15:01, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

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== "Being bold" with executable site code ==

"[[WP:BOLD|Being bold]]" with site JavaScript is not cool... Changes to site JavaScript should only be made with established, demonstrable consensus and a clear benefit to a large segment of users that cannot be achieved with a user script. Not to mention thorough cross-browser testing.

Why do administrators think that protected pages are their playground? In my view, protection establishes a higher bar for discussion regardless of who is making the change. This applies doubly to the MediaWiki namespace; it is unconditionally protected for a reason. With the privilege of being able to edit protected pages should come the responsibility and good sense to discuss the changes ''first''. [[User talk:Mike Dillon|Mike Dillon]] 14:49, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

:Perhaps a note should be added at the top of the page to this effect, since admins aren't always going to be aware that the javascript will remain in browsers' caches for a long time. [[User:Tra|Tra]] [[User:Tra/MyComments|(Talk)]] 18:53, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

::Do you mean on this page or as a comment on the JavaScript page itself? [[User talk:Mike Dillon|Mike Dillon]] 18:59, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

:::I meant as a comment on the page itself, although adding it to this talk page as well probably would probably also be useful. [[User:Tra|Tra]] [[User:Tra/MyComments|(Talk)]] 19:26, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Totally agre with the point raised. Also, a note to [[User:Yonatan|Yonatan]]: please try selecting checkboxes while holding <tt>shift</tt>. [http://en.wikipedia.org/skins-1.5/common/wikibits.js setupCheckboxShiftClick()] is supposed to help you — [[User:Alex Smotrov|Alex Smotrov]] 13:18, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

:How about having the note looking something like this? [[User:Tra|Tra]] [[User:Tra/MyComments|(Talk)]] 15:28, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

/** '''Note to administrators''' *********************************************************

*

* '''Changes made to this page will remain in people's browser caches for up to 31'''

* '''days even if they are later removed. Therefore, please test any scripts in'''

* '''multiple browsers and establish consensus on the talk page ''before'' adding them'''

* '''to this page.'''

*/

::Looks good. Perhaps it should say something like "for up to 31 days". [[User talk:Mike Dillon|Mike Dillon]] 15:43, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

:::I've put that in. [[User:Tra|Tra]] [[User:Tra/MyComments|(Talk)]] 16:01, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Seriously, you've got to be kidding me. Does the code work? Was it tested before? Is it useful? Is it making Wikipedia better? If the answer to all of these is yes and the answer to the question, "Is there any reason to remove it other than wasting time?" is no, it should probably be readded (and yes, I'm implying the answers are the ones I as looking for). Obviously saying being bold was a very poor explanation and I agree with the above notion but the code is known to work 100% (it's been in another Wikipedia's monobook for probably a year) and is definitely useful to anybody restoring pages (do you really think the shift thing is useful when you've got a 1000 revision page?). [[User:Yonatan|Yonatan]] ^{[[User_talk:Yonatan|talk]]} 17:28, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

: No we're quite serious. But on topic: What does this script accomplish that shift-clicking doesn't (I can restore [[Gay Nigger Association of America]] except for a few specific revisions in seconds)? Also this can be accomplished much more efficiently by having MediaWiki select the checkboxes by default. —''[[User:Ruud Koot|Ruud]]'' 17:52, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

:In this case, I think the issue is more "is it useful" and has there been agreement that it is needed. The answer to the first one is subjective and the second one is no. As Alex pointed out, there is already a simple alternative hard-coded in wikibits.js, i.e. shift-clicking the checkboxes. With a 1000 revision page, you have to shift click four times. That being said, if a bunch of admins decide this is needed, then point to the consensus. As it is, the changes you've made make it a pain in the ass to do a partial undelete of an article with a large history, but either way a consensus is needed and I can't say whether the drawbacks outweight the gains, given the existing mechanisms. Perhaps consensus would decide on having "check all" and "uncheck all" buttons added (which sounds like a bugzilla candidate to me).

:P.S. My rant is really about the general tendency of some admins to not be bothered waiting for consensus; not all parts apply to your action. [[User talk:Mike Dillon|Mike Dillon]] 17:54, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

::Obviously this should be a MediaWiki feature rather than a JS hack. You make some good points, but those are the ones regarding garnering consensus, etc. not anything bad about the change itself.

::"As it is, the changes you've made make it a pain in the ass to do a partial undelete of an article with a large history"

:::Not really, they make it much easier. When doing a partial restore of a page with a large history, you'll want to restore most revisions (in fact, you have to if you want Wikipedia to stay GFDL compliant) meaning it's better if all boxes are checked and then you go around deselecting the ones next to the revisions you don't want restored. [[User:Yonatan|Yonatan]] ^{[[User_talk:Yonatan|talk]]} 18:41, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

::::I can't say I have a lot of experience with delete/undelete, since I only do it on the corporate wiki at my work. The main point I was trying to make about the change being "bad", which I never actually said, is that it isn't necessarily the right change if there hasn't been prior agreement. It may indeed be an improvement, and I don't actually have the experience to say one way or the other, but a discussion could have come to a different conclusion (say on [[WP:AN]]). [[User talk:Mike Dillon|Mike Dillon]] 19:01, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Related to my original rant, another reason to always discuss changes to executable code before making them is to give on-wiki visibility in case something does break, no matter how well-tested it is. This happened recently with [[User:Cyde|Cyde]]'s undiscussed addition of [[MediaWiki:Wikimediaplayer.js]] to this file. Besides the fact that the addition added yet another "dontcountme=s", which we've been discussing and phasing out for weeks, instead of just using <code>importScript</code>, the addition ended up triggering an obscure Internet Explorer quirk within a week of being added (see [[WP:VPT#Prose size script]] and [[MediaWiki talk:Wikimediaplayer.js#Fix for link iteration]]).

The wikimediaplayer script was another instance of something that has been running on another wiki for quite a while without problems (Commons), so it was arguably tested as well as it could be. However, once it got into the larger corpus of English Wikipedia, it ran into an obscure failure mode in Internet Explorer when the article had section titles starting with a number. I think most people would agree that the chances of someone finding this during testing are pretty small, but the fact that it wasn't discussed either here or on [[WP:VPT]] made it that much harder to debug an obscure failure. If it had been discussed, presumably more people would have known that it might be a cause of problems and the issue would have been resolved quicker. [[User talk:Mike Dillon|Mike Dillon]] 19:51, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

P.S. The 31 day cache issue means that the problems with [[MediaWiki:Wikimediaplayer.js]] could still be with us for a couple more weeks. [[User talk:Mike Dillon|Mike Dillon]] 19:52, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

:I see what you mean in the bigger picture but [[WP:NOT|Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy]] and there was no risk when adding this code since it's already been tested extensively and has been active on another wiki for about a year. If there's no concrete reason to oppose this addition, it should be readded. [[User:Yonatan|Yonatan]] ^{[[User_talk:Yonatan|talk]]} 20:12, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

:: No Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy, but experience learns that a large majority of the code is improved (or has bugs removed from it) if it's posted on the talk page first. It would hurt the encyclopedia if every change made had to be discussed and reviewed first, it benefits the encyclopedia if scripts are discussed and reviewed here first. I still oppose the addition of the code as you have not made clear what benefits it adds over shift-clicking. —''[[User:Ruud Koot|Ruud]]'' 20:34, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

:::I have. First of all, I'm willing to bet that the majority of admins don't know to shift click. Secondly, having all boxes selected by default is much easier than having to shift click manually. I think you're being stubborn just for the sake of it now, since you didn't like my initial addition without a discussion. Do you *really* think it's easier to shift click instead of having all the boxes selected by default? This should've been done by default by mediawiki anyway. [[User:Yonatan|Yonatan]] ^{[[User_talk:Yonatan|talk]]} 23:22, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

:::: Thanks for assuming good faith. No I think this is only marginally useful, for only a very small percentage of the users, for something they rarely have to do, and can likely be trivially fixed in MediaWiki. So filing a [http://bugs.wikimedia.org feature request] (perhaps together with a patch) seems much more preferable than adding another piece of javascript a large number of the visitors has to download when they visit this site. —''[[User:Ruud Koot|Ruud]]'' 10:15, 28 May 2007 (UTC)