I would have to work to find the link, but you and I were discussing what happens after the WMF declines a blocker. You explicitly acknowledged that the community may respond by following through on consensus. Setting aside semantic trivia whether something "blocks deployment", we are discussing action which has the practical effect of reversing the problem, blocking the problem, disabling the problem, or otherwise attempting to improve the configuration and functioning of the wiki. (Which, from the WMF's point of view, nullifies the intended deployment.)
You said that is outside of the TCG. You said the WMF would not respond with Superprotect or any similar methods. Your approximate words were that we would turn to the "normal wiki dispute resolution process". I was unable to get clarification whether the WMF's view of "normal wiki dispute resolution process" was compatible with the community's understanding of "normal wiki dispute resolution process".
If you want concrete examples, I'll give two.
The WMF gave explicit assurances that VE would not be made the default editor without asking the community first. VE was then set as the default editor. The WMF was completely non-responsive on the issue for almost two weeks. When I escalated the issue to the Executive Director, we were then told it would be reversed. After weeks of inaction, the WMF then stated it would not be changed. The EnWiki community wrote a patch for the sitewide javascript that would override the WMF's setting.
The javascript was never deployed. The WMF did change the default. The discussion here is what would happen if the WMF had declined to roll back the VE-default? What would happen if the community did deploy the javascript?
Second example. The EnWiki community currently has a standing consensus against the NewWikitextEditor. For several months, I have been attempting to get a constructive response from the WMF on how it intends to resolve this situation. The project manager is completely non-responsive, and the liaison is unwilling or unable to constructively address the situation. Time is up on this. I have pretty much decided to just open a second RFC on the NewWikitextEditor. The three RFC options are:
- Withdraw the previous-RFC blockers. (Extremely unlikely)
- Reassert the block, assert that the NewWikitextEditor not be deployed to opt-out without a new consensus to do so, and take no concrete action. (Possible)
- Reassert the block, ask the WMF to roll back the NewWikitextEditor beta, and if necessary take action to do so ourselves. This would involve an editfilter informing users of the planned removal from beta features, possibly followed by an editfilter or javascript block of the NewEditor itself. (Possible)
Yes, that last option is very very ugly. However I literally posted an image of a big red flag warning that we were heading to a potential hot-conflict. The WMF was explicitly warned about that last option. The WMF has been ignoring the situation.
Qgil, when I tried to have an abstract discussion with you this kind of problem, your response was basically that the TCG is so awesome and the WMF will be so collaborative that we're never going to have this problem anymore. Well, here it is.
When I first saw your TGC page with the metaphor-images of the friendly boat visiting ports, my instant reaction was to go to commons and replace the images with a more obvious metaphor. I found a rather impressive series of a train crashing through warnings and barriers, barreling straight at the community, and running us over. The unstoppable train metaphor. I didn't save the edit. This project is the unstoppable train.
For a year, the WMF has known there was a serious problem here. I tried appealing to your TCG, giving the WMG exactly the sort of Actionable Blockers the WMF asked for, with exactly the process and language the WMF wanted. The WMF ignored it. The WMF has no plans for constructively resolving this conflict. The WMF is just driving the train forwards. Whoever is driving the train is either asleep at the wheel, or they explicitly plan to drive this train over the community on deployment day.
I believe we agreed that the last thing we want is for a project to blow up on deployment day. Well, if we have to find out what the "post-TCG-process" looks like, we may as well do it now. What happens if the community says YES, we really are putting up a blocker on the NewWikitextEditor? What happens if the community shuts down the NewWiktextEditor beta?