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The Bizarre and Complex Story of a Failed Wikipedia Software Extension
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."
Jokes aside, the WMF has shown a shocking lack of respect for the community, and have a tendency to develop useless look-good-UI "software" lately. (See the 'MediaViewer' debacle).
After seeing that I began to regret ever donating to them. Not only are they wasting money but they seem to be opaque and playing politics with one of the greatest collaborative efforts in history.
No, the real joke is that someone actually thought "one of the greatest collaborative efforts in history" would somehow NOT to be riddled with politics at every level.
Clever piece of evasion there. "I would ballpark the total money spent around $100-$150K max." Was that on Liquid Threads by itself, or for the entire combined ten-year-plus project? Do you even know how much money was spent on Flow by the WMF, Mr. Deputy Director?
Wikipedia editors are highly territorial, infighting, nitpicking, hairtrigger frothing mad. You can't solve that with an extension, as much as you'd like to think that everything is app-able. Software just makes people even more polarized.
I got as far as this in your link:
What is the point of a site saying they don't want to show ads, then covering up 50% of the screen with a request for money? No serious for-profitsite would consider giving up 50% of the page to an ad. It's insane.
Then I gave up. The point is not that ads are obnoxius and intrusive, the point is that ads mean you have to self censor to keep your advertisers happy. The person writing the article you likes doesn't appear to even have a shred of a clue.
SJW n. One who posts facts.