On Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 3:49 PM, Brianna Laugher brianna.laugher@gmail.com wrote:
What do people think of the idea of asking the "social networking" type *communication* extensions to be enabled on meta?
I was thinking about this, and talking to Gerard, and he pointed out that unless it was integrated into MediaWiki most people wouldn't use it, and I think he is probably right.
Meta makes the most sense, since it is already supposed to be used for coordination, and maybe if it has some extra functionality that will even encourage people to use it more.
Thoughts?
I agree with Gerard about the point related to MW integration. User-friendly interface means that user is the center of their world. And it is not because of some egocentrism, but because of usability: Just do those 30 things at the project, then 20 more at Toolserver, install this and that... -- this the best way how to alienate user. We have a great idea and it [still] keeps users with us, however we are not building an encyclopedia for aliens or historians from the future, but because of the present users -- at the first place.
Second, I think that Meta is good for testing; as well as Metians are [I think] the most interested in this. However (!): this will be just our toy until it starts to function for all projects.
And one more heresy :) As someone who has @wikimedia.org email redirect, I found useful @wikiPedia.org alias just for joining Wikipedia network at Facebook. Otherwise, I used @wikimedia.org address just a couple of times because of formal reasons. I want to say that for a lot of people it would be really cool to have email accounts (or, at least, redirects) @wikiPedia.org. If it would be integrated with the social networking abilities of MediaWiki.