User Jovianeye attempted to undo this new section, saying "please discuss this on the talk page as it is an internal issue and uses refs from mozilla's discussion forums"
Section was reinstate by me with message "Not internal - affects estimated 25m users; sources cited are public"
Note that on 3 March 2011, when Mike Beltzner heard this issue might be made public he confirmed the public nature of the discussion, saying by email:
The entire discussion is public[1]. We are not planning on making any more changes here for Firefox 4. I appreciate you giving me a heads-up.
cheers,
mike
[1]: http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.apps.firefox/browse_thread/thread/1796b7255f23067a#
The link was included in his message.
This is a significant issue because of the number of users who will be affected by data loss the first time they attempt to save their session after upgrading to Firefox 4. As stated in the article category, exact numbers are not known; a conservative estimate would be as follows:
A quarter of Firefox users sometimes exiting Firefox expecting it to save their tabs. 25% of 400,000,000 = 100,000,000.
A quarter of those having set their own home page. 25% of 100,000,000 = 25,000,000.
Of those 25m, a significant proportion are likely to have large sessions with important data. Finding out about this issue in the Firefox 4 article can prevent such data loss.
RedactionalOne (talk) 10:50, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
This what you had written
By default, Firefox 4 does not prompt to save the session (tabs and windows) on exit, something it did throughout Firefox 3[1]. Instead, it either exits with no prompt or informs the user they are about to close multiple tabs, depending on operating system and exit method. The user is not informed that their session has been saved at this point[2]. On next start, those who have kept the Firefox home page get a button on it called ‘Restore Previous Session’; other users get no clear indication that their session has been saved or how to restore it[3].
From January 2011, members of the Firefox community began alerting the developers to the danger of users losing sessions due to not being able to locate them before they were overwritten by another session[4]. It was also pointed out that the quit dialog, still present in the code though only available by changing a hidden preference, was fully compatible with the new on-demand session restore feature, and could easily be reinstated in order to avoid this data loss[5].
The Firefox developers admitted to having no idea what percentage of their 400 million users had customised their home page and so were susceptible to this issue[6]. However, feedback from Beta users on saving of tabs was overwhelmingly negative[7].
On 28 February, 2011, Firefox director Mike Beltzner, against the advice of members of his development team, made a decision not to address the issue of potential data loss prior to the shipping of Firefox 4.0[8].
This needs to be edited because its extremely detailed and affects the neutrality of the article. Additionally, I did read a few of the sources you have mentioned. The sources seem like a nested loop, one thread going to the next and the next. Ref 7 which mentions about the feedback is IMO not reliable for claiming the feedback was overwhelmingly negative. This needs to be copyedited. Paragraph 1 has useful information for readers of the article but the rest, IMO, is not needed because it mentions corporate discussions (though it may be in the public domain) and might be irrelevant. --Jovian Eye (talk) 14:48, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
Neutrality? In an article mainly written by Mozilla?! It goes some way to RESTORING the neutrality of the article. Refs 1 & 2 are the same; this is deliberate as the source for the two items being referenced is the same, and I'm not aware of a way to have two [45]s. Ref 7 has been updated to reflect the content at the time of the 'Retrieved' date. Note that the feedback buttons are on the betas and we're now beyond 4.0 release, so this explains the different feedback. Viewing any date range around the time of the Beta 10/11 releases will give similar feedback.
It is a complex subject. If you can think of a way of presenting it more clearly I'm open to suggestions and you can present them here. In the meantime I'm reinstating the section because I think this is information that a significant proportion of readers of this article will find useful.
RedactionalOne (talk) 15:33, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
Paragraphs
Right, so you've re-edited your message, questioning the need for paragraphs 2-4. Addressed below:
Paragraph 2 gives the time frame. If this had not been discovered until the day after final release it would not count as avoidable. It also discusses the actual danger: that the user's session will be overwritten before they can locate it. The part about how easily this could have been averted - by simply 'flicking a switch' - again is critical in understanding how easily this data loss could have been averted.
Paragraph 3 covers the numbers affected, again critical. If we were only talking about a few hundred users out of 400m this section wouldn't warrant adding. We are more likely talking 20 to 40 million users, but, without better data, I have omitted an actual figure. As I mentioned above, the feedback link has been updated - it now shows the feedback between Feb 27 and 28, the time it was originally accessed. Most of the comments talk of unexpectedly lost tabs.
Paragraph 4 is about the unilateral decision made by Mike Beltzner, three full weeks before final release, and against the advice of key members of his development team. Again, this speaks to the avoidable nature of what happened, as well as giving a time frame. I don't see how it can be fine to mention Beltzner in the History section but not here - I question the neutrality of that. This wasn't an accidental process; all those maybe tens of millions of users will have him to thank for their lost data. Beltzner himself is not secretive about his decision, as mentioned above.
RedactionalOne (talk) 16:23, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
User InverseHypercube has marked this section with the 'Unbalanced' tag (27 March 2011). What viewpoints are neglected here? This section is careful to avoid quantifying the seriousness of the issue, or even estimate the numbers affected. It deals solely in facts, and can, in fact, be said to underplay the issue (deliberately so, in favour of encyclopaedic neutrality).
There is an opinion I'm aware of that this is not a major issue (though no explanation of on what grounds). But since the seriousness is not quantified in the article, I don't see how that can be relevant.
I don't think this section should be about opinions. Dealing in fact is at the heart of the Wikipedia philosophy, and the facts are as stated in the section currently. We know from beta user feedback that large numbers were losing sessions from Beta 10 - the time the 'Save & Quit' option was removed - due to failure to locate them. And we also know that the numbers affected will be large - because the user base is large.
There is a related issue, not currently touched on in the section: The reason for removing the 'Save & Quit' option was the addition of on-demand session restore. That feature is seriously flawed because only one session is saved at a time and doing such innocuous things as starting Firefox and closing it without doing anything at all will overwrite the saved session without warning. So simply knowing that saved sessions are available from the History menu is not sufficient to avert data loss. This affects ALL Firefox 4 users, not just those who have set their own home page, and should probably be added to the section with expedition.
If people want to look for bias in the Firefox 4 article they should look to the Reception section. 'Reception' is nothing to do with numbers downloaded in the first 24 hours. If your software has a sufficient user base and those users are urged to update immediately due to 'security and stability' issues you're going to see high numbers downloading on the first day.
So what is your point, InverseHypercube? If none are forthcoming on the Talk page within the next 7 days I will consider the 'unbiased' claim unverified.
RedactionalOne (talk) 12:24, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
Tag Notes
OK, so I've looked into the use of the 'Unbalanced' tag on articles like this one and, while I'm sure well-meaning, InverseHypercube has erred in a couple of respects: (a) This category of tag should be accompanied by an explanation on the Talk page, and (b) heavily monitored articles should include a Talk page discussion prior to adding the tag. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Template_messages/Cleanup#Best_practices_in_heavily_monitored_articles
In fact, this section has received edits from several users, and is hopefully approaching a point where it has some degree of consensus. So removing the tag.
You are encouraged to discuss issues here prior to adding similar tags.
RedactionalOne (talk) 12:11, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
Part of Reception Category?
User Mephiles602 moved this to the Reception category (29 March 2011). There is a tenuous link to Reception in the mention of Beta feedback, but really this is a separate issue - a design fault, the impact of which is only now starting to be widely felt. It's going to need expanding slightly due to the issues of on-demand session restore as mentioned above, and having it in Reception just muddies that section, I think. I doubt the peacocks gloating about download numbers will want it there anyway.
The Reception section should be improved to include some actual information on reception - download numbers of 4.0 are going to mainly depend on numbers of users being prompted to upgrade from 3.6, and do not reflect how the product is being received.
If some sort of verifiable information comes to light about user feedback/complaints on the data loss issue it could warrant inclusion in Reception, but currently I think it would just confuse things. Reverting.
RedactionalOne (talk) 20:58, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
- This reads like you are using wikipedia to try and get your bug fixed. The "developers having no idea what percentage of users" paragraph seems a bit unnecessary. I'd ditch that. Otherwise, I hope they fix your bug for you so we can remove the paragraph.DavidRF (talk) 05:06, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
- Agreed. This is overkill about one small feature issue. Steven Walling 05:10, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
Neutrality
User Steven Walling attempted to remove two paragraphs 3 & 4 from this section, citing neutrality. Well, if this is the Steven Walling featured on the Mozilla wiki - https://wiki.mozilla.org/User:Steven_Walling - I'm not sure he's the best person to be arbiter for that. The reasons for the information in those paragraphs have already been explained - see 'Paragraphs' above.
RedactionalOne (talk) 08:33, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
- OK. I'll remove it then. I still think you are using wikipedia to gripe about your minor bug. FWIW, that page you provided shows that Mr. Walling is actually a wikimedia foundation member posting there instead of vice versa.DavidRF (talk) 09:55, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
- DavidRF, you have said that you think this is a 'minor bug', but not explained why. You think a change that has been known by the developers would cause some users to lose their session since at least November 2010 - https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=592822#c5 - and is likely to cause data loss for users numbering into the tens of millions is a 'minor bug'? Why? What would count as a major issue for you?
- If there was a computer virus going about causing a similar level of damage, there would be no questioning the seriousness. So just because it's a deliberate act by software developers instead of virus writers it doesn't warrant public scrutiny?
- It's hardly surprising that two Wikipedians could be found to support suppressing such a contentious issue. But without justifying your position it doesn't hold water. So please justify or undo.
- Re Steven Walling, his inclusion on the Mozilla wiki must surely indicate some sort of association with Mozilla - unless that wiki is attempting to compete with Wikipedia and have articles on everything!
- As for the claim I'm trying to get this 'minor bug' fixed for my own benefit, well that's totally illogical: once someone knows their session is available from the History menu this is no longer an issue. That is the primary reason the issue's inclusion here is important. But as most Firefox users won't read the article prior to using Firefox 4, I would certainly be pleased if Mozilla would address this quickly. And I would hope you would be too.
- RedactionalOne (talk) 11:05, 29 March 2011 (UTC) ETA, RedactionalOne (talk) 12:07, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
- Actually, the burden of proof is on you to explain why there should be any type of section here at all. Why is your bug more important than all of the other bugs that are in the product? I don't see similar sections in Firefox 3.6 or Firefox 3.5. If there was a general section on issues where several were listed in sequence, that would make more sense. The presence of only your issue in this section makes it sound like a really big deal like it crashes all time or it has a "pentium bug" but you yourself mention above that the workaround isn't a big deal. Why the fuss again? Plus, I still question your motives. You've created a wikipedia account for the sole purpose of creating this section to complain about your one bug. They didn't listen to you at the mozilla forums so you're going to leverage the high page-rank status of the wikipedia page to complain? Not cool.DavidRF (talk) 14:37, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
- I second what DavidRF has to say. You're simply trying to get your bug fixed through Wikipedia. --Jovian Eye talk 14:42, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
- Oh and as for the wonky accusations of conflict of interest... anyone can create an account on Mozilla wiki, just like here. It's totally open, and just having an account there doesn't imply that I have a point of view about Firefox. I made the account because I represented Wikimedia at one of their events, showing people about how to get involved in Wikipedia. I've been editing here as a regular volunteer, just like you, for years thanks. Steven Walling 17:04, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
- Steven, fair enough. Thanks for the clarification, although there isn't any reason Mozilla staffers shouldn't edit this article as long as they follow the guidelines, which you haven't: "When you find a passage in an article that you find is biased or inaccurate, improve it if you can. If that is not easily possible, and you disagree with a point of view expressed in an article, don't just delete it. Rather, balance it with what you think is neutral." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution#Focus_on_content
- All you've said is "Agreed. This is overkill about one small feature issue" - an opinion, and a surpising one given the scale of this data loss. Oh, and, in the History notes, "this is very WP:POINTy and is not neutral", breaking another guideline - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Pointy#Important_note
- DavidRF, the reason this is a big issue is that this is a planned changed which developers have known will cause users to lose sessions since November 2010:
"The UX team would like to see this [removal of quit dialog with Save & Quit button] in beta8 if possible, so we can get some feedback on any potential 'OMG, my session is gone and I can't figure out how to get it back' issues, so we have time to adjust in beta9 if that's indeed a problem." - https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=592822#c5
- This was over four months before final release, and yet Mozilla failed to take any action to notify users who'd set their own home page: no message on quit, no message on startup and, as far as I know, nothing even in the release notes or anywhere easily discoverable in the online help.
- This was not a 'bug', it was a deliberate change that they knew would cause data loss. They didn't (a) inform those affected so they could avoid that loss or (b) find out how many users would be affected, something they could have easily done using Test Pilot. Furthermore, if time was the issue they could have simply 'flicked a switch' to get the quit prompt back as a stop-gap. Developers voiced their concern in an 82-comment thread:
"True, we can't just blame users for not dealing with our UI. I also share the concern that users may not remember whether their previous session was worth keeping when starting Firefox again." - Dão Gottwald.
"I actually think that among the population of people using session restore, the amount of people having configured their homepage to something different might be quite high, as I'd connect both to the type of customization made by advanced users. And we should care about those people as they are often peers in our marketing chain that try to spread the word about Firefox." - Robert Kaiser.
"I have concerns to.[sic]" - Asa Dotzler.
- See http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.apps.firefox/browse_thread/thread/1796b7255f23067a/fe077cc89e364ad2?hl=en%19ea6c5ff307346&
- Mike Beltzner shut this discussion down and made a unilateral decision not to address the issue, saying "...the feedback from our 2.5 million beta users has not given us strong concern that this will be a problematic change for the *majority* of our users." The point, of course, is that with a user base of 400m, a minority of users can still be a huge number.
- So that is the issue, and I trust I have now explained it to your satisfaction, such that you will undo your hasty deletions.
- RedactionalOne (talk) 18:45, 29 March 2011 (UTC), ETA RedactionalOne (talk) 18:46, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
- We haven't actually deleted it (yet anyways). Its still there. We just pared it back. I still don't understand why you think your bug is such a big deal. There have been dozens of reviews of the software now that its released. These reviews have been unexpectedly mixed, but I haven't heard anybody talk about this issue of yours. If someone wanted to write a well-balanced section giving an overview of the weird quirks present in this release and a broader summary of the migration issues users have encountered (and not just your one bug) then I would support that. But why your one bug and not all the others? "Guideline breach"... come on. Why have you taken this one bug so personally?DavidRF (talk) 19:15, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
- Why do you keep going on about it being a 'bug', when it was a deliberate change in the pipeline for months? The data loss these estimated tens of millions of people are going to experience is avoidable, and it should have been avoided. Mike Beltzner made a decision which goes against the welfare of the user and the spirit of Mozilla, and readers of this article have a right to know that.
- Yes, there are plenty of migration issues and quirks in 4.0, for instance the fact that Windows 7 and Vista users get a totally different UI to everyone else. And yes, of course there are many serious bugs. But these are actual bugs - unintended behaviours that have yet to be addressed. The issue I've tried to represent here is of another magnitude altogether. It's good to know, however, that you would support such a section.
- Note that, as noted in "Part of Reception Category?" above, this is not a 'reception' issue - it's a design issue going back months before it first appeared in the betas, and has another component as yet not detailed - the loss of sessions by users who do know where to find them.
- As noted already, as soon as a user realises the sessions are being saved and are then available from the History menu it is no longer an issue for them. (In my case, I backed up my profile folder anyway, so never lost data.) My motive is simple: I am (as some of the developers tried to do) advocating for the user, and making information available to some Firefox 4 users, at least.
- RedactionalOne (talk) 10:17, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
- If it was a deliberate change planned ahead and yet none of the major press covering the release wrote about it, then it's even less worthy of treatment in the article. If it was a new bug, then it was fine to do a little bit of synthesis original research by combining links to the forums, bugzilla, whatever. But if it's a feature that no secondary sources covered, then it should be included. The encyclopedia does and should rely primarily on secondary source material, not combinations of primary sources. Steven Walling 18:24, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
- So how does the information on usage share not count as original research? Contributors have just gone to StatCounter and interpreted the browser graph there (and not in an entirely unbiased way, judging by the unmentioned strong uptake of Chrome 10).
- The feature that Mozilla was planning was on-demand session restore, and there may well be articles that can be cited on that - I'll take a look. Basically, what I've done here is detail behaviours in two different software versions. I don't think this necessarily advances a new position, but I can now see that it rides a bit close to the wave. I will have a look for suitable citings. DavidRF was just suggesting a 'Migration Issues' section, which would be a useful addition and which this issue would fit into very well. But, depending on interpretation, finding suitable tech site articles for that could be problematic. Tech sites have agendas, and they're typically into comparing what's new. Anyway, I'll take these requirements on board and see if there are better cite sources available.
- RedactionalOne (talk) 22:08, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
This whole section is quite obviously just the person who started a thread on dev.apps.firefox following through on his "threat" (in private email to Mike Beltzner) to "bring this issue to the press." This has obviously failed, because there are no citations for "data loss" on Google News in reference to Firefox 4.
I recommend this section be deleted (and have done so), as it has not been a notable issue in any way since Firefox 4 was released.
Full disclosure: I am a Mozilla employee.
HoserHead (talk) 00:46, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
- I agree. RedactionalOne: I actually agree that it's nonsense that FF4 would not save sessions properly, but Wikipedia is not the place to bring up this issue. An encyclopedia describes "what is", not what each of us thinks "should be", and this is not the forum to keep pushing this particular aspect of Firefox 4's release. Unless reliable secondary sources can be found to back up the importance of this topic, that is. Steven Walling 01:34, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
- HoserHead, your stated issue for removal is "This is not a notable issue." I don't see how that can possibly be a valid reason, given the scale of the data loss and that it now appears Beltzner's rush to get 4.0 out was to get the run on Chrome 10, putting a browser war ahead of the interests of users. Your reasons for questioning my content differ strongly from Steven Walling's. There is a legitimate case for the 'original research' argument, especially for some of the text that had already been pared back. I don't see that your reason can be said to be legitimate, and your neutrality is in question as a Mozilla employee. Note that my email to Mr Beltzner was in no way a threat and this was stated. It was a heads-up - one for which he thanked me. This issue is still not mentioned in the release notes, which is extraordinary. If Mozilla no longer cares about the user, it has lost its way. And as you probably appreciate more than Steven, the removal of all reference to the issue in this article will cause further data loss to unsuspecting Firefox 4 users.
- Steven Walling, you're saying there is nothing from the deleted section that is both of value to the reader and not problematic under SYNTH? As stated above, I strongly dispute HoserHead's reason for deletion, which seems quite different from yours and motivated by damage limitation.
- RedactionalOne (talk) 10:36, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
- Just to throw in my two cents here, I think this entire discussion is moot until someone can provide a reliable source stating that this is a common issue/concern for Firefox users. Wikipedia is the only place I've seen this mentioned, and a quick Google search for both "firefox 4 data loss" and "firefox 4 restore previous session" is not yielding results. The section read as a very technical and specific complaint by someone for whom this was of personal importance, and RedactionalOne has not made a compelling case for why this belongs here. It's clear that RedactionalOne has some problems with Mozilla and the way that Firefox 4 was developed, but without any source supporting these concerns, it has to be removed. Furthermore, it is not the job of Wikipedia to provide technical support - users that experience data loss should not be looking here for answers. Arguing about this further isn't going to change anything until something can be shown to make this relevant.
- Prophetman (talk) 14:16, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
- It's precisely the fact that nobody - let alone notable sources - has reported on this problem that led me to remove this section. It's not notable. It hasn't come up in our (Mozilla's) tech support channels as a major issue. If I wanted to limit damage, I'd advocate for the "issue" to be fixed. What I want is a better Firefox 4 article on Wikipedia - and the article is better without this section.
- HoserHead (talk) 16:10, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
- RedactionalOne: yes, unless secondary sources can be produced, that is what I am saying. Steven Walling 16:21, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
- Prophetman, what I've not found in searches is any documentation on either on-demand session restore or the Firefox menu in the Firefox online help - just amazing. I am a fan of Firefox, and this issue isn't enough to turn me to Chrome. What I'm not a fan of is a decision being made to (seemingly) put the browser war ahead of user welfare. It is the job of Wikipedia to provide pertinent information. People often refer to it before upgrading or first using software. And I'm pretty sure they'd be more interested in averting data loss than the fact that Firefox 4 has overtaken IE SIX!
- HoserHead, you are entitled to your opinion that this is not notable. However, I note that Firefox online help is inundated with queries on it: http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/search?fx=1&q=save+tabs&os=1&page=5 - over ten pages' -worth - and we're only 10 days into the launch. Personally, if it was me losing a session I'd work out what was wrong. If it had been overwritten before I could locate it I wouldn't file a helpdesk request. As noted by Robert Kaiser above, a lot of the people most likely to maintain large sessions are also power users, and these are less likely to file helpdesk requests at the drop of a hat. If you want to demonstrate that this won't affect many people, get Test Pilot to gather data on the number of users with a custom home page (not what that page is). If the figure is under 5% I'll consider this not notable.
- RedactionalOne (talk) 22:11, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
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