Last modified: 2013-07-30 01:24:09 UTC
The current version of CentralNotice only allows the user to target a campaign to specific projects (e.g. all Wiktionaries), or languages (e.g. all wikis in Dutch), or a combination of the two (e.g. Wiktionary and Wikisource in German). It is not possible, however, to select wikis more accurately. Use case: Technical maintenance performed by the Wikimedia Foundation is sometimes split into several stages to limit disruption. For example, the deployment of MediaWiki 1.18 is happening in three stages with the following wiki sets: 1) simple.wikipedia.org, simple.wiktionary.org, usability.wikimedia.org, strategy.wikimedia.org, mediawiki.org, he.wikisource.org 2) meta.wikimedia.org, en.wikiquote.org, en.wikibooks.org, beta.wikiversity.org, eo.wikipedia.org, nl.wikipedia.org 3) All remaining wikis. Because the sets don't concern a specific project or a specific language, it is not possible to target each group of wikis with a dedicated campaign.
Sounds like a user interface nightmare. For one-off cases like this it might make more sense to use Javascript in the banner itself to handle the targeting. In other words, target the campaign to all the projects types necessary and have the Javascript check for particular language/project combinations.
[[Special:SiteMatrix]] seems to be doing the job without being an "interface nightmare". The links could simply be replaced by checkboxes. The existing interface could remain as a simple, default interface, only offering the complete list to those who need more flexibility. JavaScript in the banner adds complexity for the user, who may not be proficient in JS.
This would require internally reworking how CentralNotice handles targeting for wikis, including a few database schema changes. Since 1.18 is already deployed at this point, it is unlikely this feature will be implemented before this year's fundraiser due to other priorities. Adjusting importance accordingly.
