Discussion forum for bugs/features - Wikipedia-l

9 Aug 2002

Under Phase II, we used [[Bug reports]] and [[Feature requests]]
not merely to list desired features and undesired bugs
but also to talk about them in a wiki way.
Under Phase III, we instead use SourceForge for this.
But SourceForge doesn't lend itself to discussion.
Because Lee is essentially the only programmer,
he will close an entry there if he doesn't want to do it.
Of course, we know that he's willing to be convinced,
but there's not much chance of that if there's no discussion.

There are alternatives.
[[Bug reports]] and [[Feature requests]] still exist,
but nobody has used them since the change,
and I doubt that very many people are watching them.
Much discussion of features has taken place on this list,
but that doesn't reach nearly as wide an audience as before.
Most people that submit an item to SourceForge
aren't going to think to take it up on the list.

In short, I think that we miss the discussion that we had in Phase II.
We need a place for people to submit items for Wikipedians' approval
other than SourceForge, but we need to use SourceForge too.
Ideas?

-- Toby Bartels
   &lt;toby+wikipedia-l(a)math.ucr.edu&gt;