Page MenuHomePhabricator

Replace underscores with dashes in all cite_error_… and cite_warning_… messages
Closed, DeclinedPublic

Description

Following naming conventions for message keys. Problem is: There are hundreds of local overrides on the Wikimedia wikis. What can we do about this? Is it even worth it?

Only 2 of the currently 19 error messages have 0 overrides. These happen to be the most recently added ones.

What we probably need to do:

  • While not strictly related, it's worth getting rid of the non-error messages with 0 overrides. See T321217.
  • For every error and warning message make a full list with the overrides that exist.
  • Mark the overrides that don't just replace the text but use special features. Most notably if the message includes a template, and which template.
  • For messages with templates, actually execute them with an example on their home wiki and write down the user-facing error message created by the template.
  • With all this information it might be possible to replace some of the messages with plain-text messages, without loosing anything the communities added.
  • Analyze the templates source code and what it does. E.g. do they add additional tracking categories?
  • …?

Event Timeline

Change 980003 had a related patch set uploaded (by Thiemo Kreuz (WMDE); author: Thiemo Kreuz (WMDE)):

[mediawiki/extensions/Cite@master] Relax support for error/warning message keys with dashes

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/980003

thiemowmde updated the task description. (Show Details)

Change #980003 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/extensions/Cite@master] Relax support for error/warning message keys with dashes

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/980003

Way to much work for no meaningful benefit.

Oh, I'm really sad to see this Declined; it's one the main bug-bears about the Cite extension's semi-unmaintained status that even relatively trivial tech debt like this hasn't been fixed in two decades.

We did this in other codebases where it was trivial. But here we would need to coordinate 1700 local overrides in a multi-stage process. I don't think this is worth the TechWish team's limited resources. Instead we focus on T321217 and generally the parser migration to hopefully remove as much of this mess as possible.

We did this in other codebases where it was trivial. But here we would need to coordinate 1700 local overrides in a multi-stage process. I don't think this is worth the TechWish team's limited resources. Instead we focus on T321217 and generally the parser migration to hopefully remove as much of this mess as possible.

OK, I totally appreciate that WMDE's team doesn't have the resources to do this now, and will focus on the smaller task for now; that is totally reasonable, and a good choice in favour of making progress.

However, Cite is owned by the Editing team at the Foundation and used by lots of wikis within and beyond the Wikimedia community. De-tagging this task from your team and explaining you won't have time to do it is fine; Declining it is saying that by your authority no-one should work on this, not just now but ever. It's a pretty aggressive (if possibly not intended?) statement about what other people are allowed to do, and discourages (e.g.) a community volunteer who might want to clean it up.

Of course, you created this task in the context of your team's work, but as a shared space Phabricator tasks have a life of their own beyond that which we intend.

I seriously can't follow, sorry. I created this ticket. Nobody else ever interacted with it. Closing it doesn't block anyone doing anything.