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The Bizarre and Complex Story of a Failed Wikipedia Software Extension

Posted by timothy on from the mythical-man-month dept.

metasonix writes Originally developed by Wikia coders, "Liquid Threads" was intended to be a better comment system for use on MediaWiki talkpages. When applied to Wikipedia, then each Wikipedia talkpage or noticeboard would become something resembling a more modernized bulletin board, hopefully easier to use. Unfortunately, the project was renamed "Flow" and taken over by the Wikimedia Foundation's developers. And as documented in this very long Wikipediocracy post, the result was "less than optimal." After seven years and millions of dollars spent, even WMF Director Lila Tretikov admits "As such it is not ready for 'prime time' for us."

3 of 94 comments (clear)

  1. I assume the Wikimedia developers... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    >...taken over by the Wikimedia Foundation's developers. ... After seven years and millions of dollars spent, ... "As such it is not ready for 'prime time' for us."

    I assume the Wikimedia developers kept reverting each other's checkins for various reasons such as "Commenting needed", "Not codeworthy", and so forth. </tongue-in-cheek>

    1. Re:I assume the Wikimedia developers... by AuMatar · · Score: 5, Funny

      No, they just didn't allow any checkins at all as they were "original research".

      --
      I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
  2. So... by grep+-v+'.*'+* · · Score: 2, Funny

    "The Bizarre and Complex Story of a Failed Wikipedia Software Extension" -- so they took this failed Alpha code, installed and upgraded it here, and called it Beta?

    --
    If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?