On Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 10:27 AM Samuel Klein <meta.sj@gmail.com> wrote:
> Separate thread. I'm not sure which list is appropriate.
> *... but not all the way to sentience
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Uplift_War>.*
>
> The annual community wishlist survey (implemented by a small team,
> possibly in isolation?) may not be the mechanism for prioritizing large
> changes, but the latter also deserves a community-curated priority queue.
> To complement the staff-maintained priorities in phab ~
>
> For core challenges (like Commons stability and capacity), I'd be
> surprised if the bottleneck were people or budget.
>
Currently there are zero people and no budget for multimedia, aside from
whatever work I and others manage to get done here there. And I'm afraid I
don't scale.
It's Wikimedia Foundation's job to assign budget and people here. I've been
hoping for years that this will happen, and continue to hope.
-- brion
We do need a shared understanding of what issues are most important and
> most urgent, and how to solve them. For instance, a way to turn Amir's
> recent email about the problem (and related phab tickets) into a family of
> persistent, implementable specs and proposals and their articulated
> obstacles.
>
> An issue tracker like phab is good for tracking the progress and
> dependencies of agreed-upon tasks, but weak for discussing what is
> important, what we know about it, how to address it. And weak for
> discussing ecosystem-design issues that are important and need persistent
> updating but don't have a simple checklist of steps.
>
> So where is the best current place to discuss scaling Commons, and all
> that entails? Some examples from recent discussions (most from the wm-l
> thread below):
> - *Uploads*: Support for large file uploads / Keeping bulk upload tools
> online
> - *Video*: Debugging + rolling out the videojs
> <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T248418> player
> - *Formats*: Adding support for CML
> <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T18491> and dozens of other
> <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T297514> common high-demand file
> formats
> - *Thumbs*: Updating thumbor <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T216815>
> and librsvg <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T193352>
> - *Search*: WCQS still <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T297454> down
> <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T297454>, noauth option
> <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T297995> wanted for tools
> - *General*: Finish implementing redesign
> <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T28741> of the image table
>
> SJ
>
> On Wed, Dec 29, 2021 at 6:26 AM Amir Sarabadani <ladsgroup@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> I'm not debating your note. It is very valid that we lack proper support
>> for multimedia stack. I myself wrote a detailed rant on how broken it is
>> [1] but three notes:
>> - Fixing something like this takes time, you need to assign the budget
>> for it (which means it has to be done during the annual planning) and if
>> gets approved, you need to start it with the fiscal year (meaning July
>> 2022) and then hire (meaning, write JD, do recruitment, interview lots of
>> people, get them hired) which can take from several months to years. Once
>> they are hired, you need to onboard them and let them learn about our
>> technical infrastructure which takes at least two good months. Software
>> engineering is not magic, it takes time, blood and sweat. [2]
>> - Making another team focus on multimedia requires changes in planning,
>> budget, OKR, etc. etc. Are we sure moving the focus of teams is a good
>> idea? Most teams are already focusing on vital parts of wikimedia and
>> changing the focus will turn this into a whack-a-mole game where we fix
>> multimedia but now we have critical issues in security or performance.
>> - Voting Wishlist survey is a good band-aid in the meantime. To at least
>> address the worst parts for now.
>>
>> I don't understand your point tbh, either you think it's a good idea to
>> make requests for improvements in multimedia in the wishlist survey or you
>> think it's not. If you think it's not, then it's offtopic to this thread.
>>
>> [1]
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/WMPZHMXSLQJ6GONAVTFLDFFMPNJDVORS/
>> [2] There is a classic book in this topic called "The Mythical Man-month"
>>
>> On Wed, Dec 29, 2021 at 11:41 AM Gnangarra <gnangarra@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> we have to vote for regular maintenance and support for
>>> essential functions like uploading files which is the core mission of
>>> Wikimedia Commons
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
> Commons-l mailing list -- commons-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe send an email to commons-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
>
> Separate thread. I'm not sure which list is appropriate.
> *... but not all the way to sentience
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Uplift_War>.*
>
> The annual community wishlist survey (implemented by a small team,
> possibly in isolation?) may not be the mechanism for prioritizing large
> changes, but the latter also deserves a community-curated priority queue.
> To complement the staff-maintained priorities in phab ~
>
> For core challenges (like Commons stability and capacity), I'd be
> surprised if the bottleneck were people or budget.
>
Currently there are zero people and no budget for multimedia, aside from
whatever work I and others manage to get done here there. And I'm afraid I
don't scale.
It's Wikimedia Foundation's job to assign budget and people here. I've been
hoping for years that this will happen, and continue to hope.
-- brion
We do need a shared understanding of what issues are most important and
> most urgent, and how to solve them. For instance, a way to turn Amir's
> recent email about the problem (and related phab tickets) into a family of
> persistent, implementable specs and proposals and their articulated
> obstacles.
>
> An issue tracker like phab is good for tracking the progress and
> dependencies of agreed-upon tasks, but weak for discussing what is
> important, what we know about it, how to address it. And weak for
> discussing ecosystem-design issues that are important and need persistent
> updating but don't have a simple checklist of steps.
>
> So where is the best current place to discuss scaling Commons, and all
> that entails? Some examples from recent discussions (most from the wm-l
> thread below):
> - *Uploads*: Support for large file uploads / Keeping bulk upload tools
> online
> - *Video*: Debugging + rolling out the videojs
> <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T248418> player
> - *Formats*: Adding support for CML
> <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T18491> and dozens of other
> <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T297514> common high-demand file
> formats
> - *Thumbs*: Updating thumbor <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T216815>
> and librsvg <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T193352>
> - *Search*: WCQS still <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T297454> down
> <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T297454>, noauth option
> <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T297995> wanted for tools
> - *General*: Finish implementing redesign
> <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T28741> of the image table
>
> SJ
>
> On Wed, Dec 29, 2021 at 6:26 AM Amir Sarabadani <ladsgroup@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> I'm not debating your note. It is very valid that we lack proper support
>> for multimedia stack. I myself wrote a detailed rant on how broken it is
>> [1] but three notes:
>> - Fixing something like this takes time, you need to assign the budget
>> for it (which means it has to be done during the annual planning) and if
>> gets approved, you need to start it with the fiscal year (meaning July
>> 2022) and then hire (meaning, write JD, do recruitment, interview lots of
>> people, get them hired) which can take from several months to years. Once
>> they are hired, you need to onboard them and let them learn about our
>> technical infrastructure which takes at least two good months. Software
>> engineering is not magic, it takes time, blood and sweat. [2]
>> - Making another team focus on multimedia requires changes in planning,
>> budget, OKR, etc. etc. Are we sure moving the focus of teams is a good
>> idea? Most teams are already focusing on vital parts of wikimedia and
>> changing the focus will turn this into a whack-a-mole game where we fix
>> multimedia but now we have critical issues in security or performance.
>> - Voting Wishlist survey is a good band-aid in the meantime. To at least
>> address the worst parts for now.
>>
>> I don't understand your point tbh, either you think it's a good idea to
>> make requests for improvements in multimedia in the wishlist survey or you
>> think it's not. If you think it's not, then it's offtopic to this thread.
>>
>> [1]
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/WMPZHMXSLQJ6GONAVTFLDFFMPNJDVORS/
>> [2] There is a classic book in this topic called "The Mythical Man-month"
>>
>> On Wed, Dec 29, 2021 at 11:41 AM Gnangarra <gnangarra@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> we have to vote for regular maintenance and support for
>>> essential functions like uploading files which is the core mission of
>>> Wikimedia Commons
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
> Commons-l mailing list -- commons-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe send an email to commons-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
>