Can you give us a little more context? I can see that there is a proposal to create a separate meta wiki just for the english wikipedia, presumably because many things currently on meta.wikipedia are not really applicable to other wikipedias?
This isn't a proposal for an English meta at all. It was an attempt to make Meta actually useful as a cross-project work wiki, rather than a disorganised collection of historical documents with a few working pages camped out in the archaeological rubble.
Linuxbeak started the latest attempt ( [[m:WM:OM]] ); Jimbo gave his blessing, but warned that many had tried and failed before. The reason appears to be that there are enough people who like it as it is that they don't care it's all but unusable and frequently actively misleading, and that those of us who would like a cross-project work wiki are regarded as a bunch of dicks for trying.
Anthere has also said, when asked directly, that there is an active meta community but they don't actually do their work on meta, rather on mailing lists and IRC. Which doesn't sound to me like a work wiki, but evidently does to her and others. So I proposed a "meta2", which can actually be used as a work wiki. The current meta incumbents have decided this is in fact a proposal for an en: wikipedia Meta, when it wasn't actually anything of the sort, but anyway.
Meta is evidently not a cross-project work wiki or service wiki for other projects, but a separate community unto itself, somewhat like Commons. (Recall en:'s problems with vandalism of images stored on Commons, and how we eventually had to resort to storing featured images directly on en: owing to the recalcitrance of Commons admins who insisted they were an independent project, never mind Commons was *invented* as a service wiki.) I'm not entirely sure what the point is, but I'm sure someone will follow up with what makes a wiki where the community do their actual work in IRC and mailing lists into a work wiki whose use is clear to those not in the inner circle.
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
This isn't a proposal for an English meta at all. It was an attempt to make Meta actually useful as a cross-project work wiki, rather than a disorganised collection of historical documents with a few working pages camped out in the archaeological rubble.
Can anyone please explain to me what "work" means here?
One of the archaic pages on meta is http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikispecies which hasn't really changed much since September 2004. The project proposal is dead, nobody works on it. There are few better examples of dead meat on meta.
The current proposal to "overhaul" meta seems to suggest that the Wikispecies page could be simply deleted. Is that correct?
Then next month, someone can come to this new, fresh and legacy-free meta to do "work", for example by suggesting a new project called Wikispecies. Since there is no previous mentioning of this idea, it must be new. Brave new world!
If I'm missing something here, perhaps a better explanation of the overhaul plans could be needed.
On 3/31/06, Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se wrote:
One of the archaic pages on meta is http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikispecies which hasn't really changed much since September 2004. The project proposal is dead, nobody works on it. There are few better examples of dead meat on meta.
[snip]
Then next month, someone can come to this new, fresh and legacy-free meta to do "work", for example by suggesting a new project called Wikispecies. Since there is no previous mentioning of this idea, it must be new. Brave new world!
Not to disagree with the essence of your points, but we do happen to have a project called Wikispecies... [http://species.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page]
-- Sam
Lars Aronsson wrote:
David Gerard wrote:
This isn't a proposal for an English meta at all. It was an attempt to make Meta actually useful as a cross-project work wiki, rather than a disorganised collection of historical documents with a few working pages camped out in the archaeological rubble.
Can anyone please explain to me what "work" means here?
One of the archaic pages on meta is http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikispecies which hasn't really changed much since September 2004. The project proposal is dead, nobody works on it. There are few better examples of dead meat on meta.
The current proposal to "overhaul" meta seems to suggest that the Wikispecies page could be simply deleted. Is that correct?
Then next month, someone can come to this new, fresh and legacy-free meta to do "work", for example by suggesting a new project called Wikispecies. Since there is no previous mentioning of this idea, it must be new. Brave new world!
If I'm missing something here, perhaps a better explanation of the overhaul plans could be needed.
Absolutely do not delete pages like this!
This is exactly the kind of stuff that needs to be preserved on Meta and marked perhaps as a historical page, but not removed. Or else you might as well simply delete everything on Meta and restart it as a fresh project like is being done with the French Wikiquote.
Seriously, this is going way too far. I've said it before and I'll say it again: What Meta needs is some way to navigate the content, not a need to clean out deadwood like you are suggesting here. Oh, I am sure that there is random nonsense that was put into Meta by some users that needs to be deleted, and is mostly a personal soapbox and perhaps resembles vandalized pages as new user experiments. Clearly you aren't talking about cruft like that, are you?
Just because a page hasn't had any edit activity for some period of time does not by itself justify deletion on any Wikimedia project. You need to take into account what links to that content, and how significant it is to the rest of the project. The quality of the prose does have an impact when I'm trying to evaluate pages like this myself... i.e. if it is a significant essay that has been obviously proofread and worked on by more than a couple editors, you should be especially wary of a quick decision to delete the content.
In the case of Wikispecies, we need to keep that around as a historical reminder to find out just what went wrong with that proposal, and why did the project turn out so poorly. Negative examples are just as important as positive examples of project pages like the Wikinews or Wikibooks pages on Meta. So are you proposing to delete the Wikinews page as well, since the project is already up and running and no longer needs the page on Meta? The logic is identical here other than a few more recent edits have happened on the Wikinews page instead.
I'm certain there is real cruft on Meta of the new user experiment variety that you shouldn't have to waste your time trying to decide if a historical page like the Wikispecies page is worthy of removal. Please deal with the obvious garbage pages first before removing stuff you know is going to get people upset.
Robert Scott Horning wrote:
In the case of Wikispecies, we need to keep that around as a historical reminder to find out just what went wrong with that proposal, and why did the project turn out so poorly. Negative examples are just as important as positive examples of project pages like the Wikinews or Wikibooks pages on Meta. So are you proposing to delete the Wikinews page as well, since the project is already up and running and no longer needs the page on Meta? The logic is identical here other than a few more recent edits have happened on the Wikinews page instead.
I don't think that it is fair to say that Wikispecies has turned out poorly. I just checked the RC there and there were over 250 entries in the last 24 hours. Is that doing poorly?
Ec
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Robert Scott Horning wrote:
In the case of Wikispecies, we need to keep that around as a historical reminder to find out just what went wrong with that proposal, and why did the project turn out so poorly. Negative examples are just as important as positive examples of project pages like the Wikinews or Wikibooks pages on Meta. So are you proposing to delete the Wikinews page as well, since the project is already up and running and no longer needs the page on Meta? The logic is identical here other than a few more recent edits have happened on the Wikinews page instead.
I don't think that it is fair to say that Wikispecies has turned out poorly. I just checked the RC there and there were over 250 entries in the last 24 hours. Is that doing poorly?
Ec
Compared to similar projects that have been around for the same length of time, its Alexa ranking, and the fact that it is linked prominently on the front page of every Wikimedia sister project, yeah, it isn't doing as well as it could or should be doing. I don't want to open the can of worms about the project status of Wikispecies, but there are some problems on that project that simply need to work everything out. It has also been commonly cited as an example of a project that hasn't worked out or wouldn't be approved if it had to go through the current new project policy.
At 22:51 +0100 30/3/06, David Gerard wrote:
Can you give us a little more context? I can see that there is a proposal to create a separate meta wiki just for the english wikipedia, presumably because many things currently on meta.wikipedia are not really applicable to other wikipedias?
This isn't a proposal for an English meta at all. It was an attempt to make Meta actually useful as a cross-project work wiki, rather than a disorganised collection of historical documents with a few working pages camped out in the archaeological rubble.
Linuxbeak started the latest attempt ( [[m:WM:OM]] ); Jimbo gave his blessing, but warned that many had tried and failed before. The reason appears to be that there are enough people who like it as it is that they don't care it's all but unusable and frequently actively misleading, and that those of us who would like a cross-project work wiki are regarded as a bunch of dicks for trying.
Anthere has also said, when asked directly, that there is an active meta community but they don't actually do their work on meta, rather on mailing lists and IRC. Which doesn't sound to me like a work wiki, but evidently does to her and others. So I proposed a "meta2", which can actually be used as a work wiki. The current meta incumbents have decided this is in fact a proposal for an en: wikipedia Meta, when it wasn't actually anything of the sort, but anyway.
Meta is evidently not a cross-project work wiki or service wiki for other projects, but a separate community unto itself, somewhat like Commons. (Recall en:'s problems with vandalism of images stored on Commons, and how we eventually had to resort to storing featured images directly on en: owing to the recalcitrance of Commons admins who insisted they were an independent project, never mind Commons was *invented* as a service wiki.) I'm not entirely sure what the point is, but I'm sure someone will follow up with what makes a wiki where the community do their actual work in IRC and mailing lists into a work wiki whose use is clear to those not in the inner circle.
- d.
Can I just add my name to the list who have complained in the past that Meta is not useful for some aspects of our work? I was concerned that information about the inception of "Wikimedia UK" was hard to find, duplicated etc. This meant that many volunteers who might have taken part got lost on the way or may never have known about the existence of the team (who worked very hard and drank some good "real ale" on Sunday afternoons:-)
The main difference between, say, IRC (and email) and a wiki is that a the former are linear (by timestamp) and the latter (a set of Wiki pages) is not.
A recent example of "Wikimeia UK" existing on a island was that (previously discussed) total lack of any involvement from Welsh speakers, who may or may not live in Wales. If "Wikimedia UK" wants to be inclusive, and democratic, it has to open the doors a little wider, and not live in "Meta Space", but In Real Life.
Hence, I would submit to you that Mediawiki 1.5.x and 1.6.x may not be the "magic bullet". A wiki is poor tool for many jobs.
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