We have had a number (not enough!) of Wikimedia (usually Wikipedia, and typically English Wikipedia) discussion sites, but has there been any previous ones that have used mediawiki? That is, other than Meta.. ?
I can't answer your question about previous sites, but I can tell you that the reasoning behind using MediaWiki was to test ideas in both governance and technology.
IMO it is unfortunate that Wil didnt hasnt made more use of Meta, and I am curious what the reasoning behind that decision was. There are very few people banned from Meta, thought it does happen occasionally and is usually reversed if they can behave.
Maybe my answer above addresses this. Part of the reasoning is to create an environment where everyone can contribute. But we're also experiment with different forms of governance and testing the impact of technology changes on the site. This isn't something we can do on Meta.
I am also very curious about who came up with the Offwiki term 'Flounder'. http://offwiki.org/wiki/Meta:Proposals#Flounders To me it feels like a very nasty slur against Jimmy Wales.
Actually, I did. And I didn't mean to slight Jimmy. I respect Jimmy greatly. The idea behind "flounder" is that "founder" is a loaded word in some circles of Wikipedia critics. Also, it's self-deprecation; I figured we'd have issues in the beginning- after all, I'd never run a Mediwiki installation before- and we've greatly exceeded my expectations on this front. ;) In general, I'd like the site to take a more light-hearted direction than it has so far, but it's up to the community.
Also, will Offwiki be multilingual? Does it intend to cover projects other than English Wikipedia? If not, it isnt very relevant to the wikimedia-l list, but is of course relevant to wikien-l which I have cc:d which appears to be its primary focus.
Sure, it can be fully multilingual. I believe one person already suggested articles in Russian.
In any case, we should probably discuss this on Offwiki itself. I'm happy to see some interest, but it is off topic for this forum.
,Wil