Talk:Deployments/Holding the train

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From Wikitech

Better definition needed for "Major stylistic problems affecting all pages"

It's really hard to know when a UI regression should be considered drop everything and fix, or fix for the next week deploy. I've encountered several Phabricator tickets in the last few weeks which would have benefited from a better definition. I think it's important we have a shared definition.

To get the conversation going I suggest a more details definition, and propose the following:

"Major stylistic problems that affect anonymous editors on mobile or desktop skins (Vector, Minerva) on all wikis. The UI regression should be visible immediately on page load after loading a page or clicking the edit button.

UI Regressions in opt-in skins e.g. Timeless, Monobook, Modern, CologneBlue should rarely block the train, however backporting is encouraged at the earliest possible opportunity.

In cases where a regression impacts only one project e.g. Wikimedia Commons, Wikidata for example, fixes via site JavaScript or site styles should always be preferred. These should not block the train.

Examples of "major":

  • An unexpected change to fonts (e.g. size change)
  • Unreadable UI e.g. overlapping text
  • The UI regression impacts accessibility e.g. white text on white background
  • Problem that impacts branding e.g. logo


Thoughts? cc @User:Ppelberg @User: OVasileva (WMF) @User:MMiller (WMF)

jdlrobson (talk) 19:22, 17 May 2021 (UTC)Reply

I talked about this with a few Wikimedia staff members, and have outputted the outcome of that discussion on the article page. My understanding is Erika and Tyler will be creating/augumenting a decision tree to help with making decisions around UX. jdlrobson (talk) 20:55, 1 June 2021 (UTC)Reply