Neil Kandalgaonkar wrote:
Question: assuming that our primary interest is
creating software for
Wikipedia and similar WMF projects, do we actually get anything from the
Windows PC intranet users that offsets the cost of keeping MediaWiki
friendly to both environments? In other words, do we get contributions
from them that help us do Wikipedia et al,?
Not generally, no.
MediaWiki is just one of Wikimedia's projects, something that I think is
sometimes overlooked or forgotten. Probably as it's the current base upon
which all the other projects are built. To me, that appears to be the
fundamental problem here. I've said this in a roundabout way a few times
now, but the horse is still whimpering, so let's try once more.
I don't think the software that a dictionary or quote database needs is ever
going to be the same as the software that an encyclopedia or news site
needs. And I don't think the software options that fit those four use-cases
will ever work (well!) for a media repository. I don't think it's a lack of
creativity. Given the hacks put in place on sites like the English
Wiktionary, it's clearly not. But at some point there has to be a
recognition that using a screwdriver to put nails in the wall is a bad idea.
You need a hammer.
Tim wrote a blog on
techblog.wikimedia.org in July 2010 about MediaWiki
version statistics. Someone commented that it was ironic that Wikimedia was
using WordPress instead of MediaWiki as a blogging platform. Tim's response:
they do different things.[1]
This isn't a matter of not knowing what the problem is. The problem is
recognized by the leading MediaWiki developers and it's an old software
principle (cf. Unix's philosophy[2] of doing one thing and doing it well).
The full phrase quoted earlier is "jack of all trades, master of none." I
think MediaWiki fits this perfectly.
I don't think using a general purpose wiki engine for every project is
inherently a poor idea. MediaWiki is highly extensible. We just, for
some reason, haven't really taken advantage of that where it could
really matter. Most of the extensions we use just kind of work in the
background. I don't know if its due to lack of resources, or whether the
WMF wants all the projects to look and work the same.
Wiktionary is probably the easiest example. All of the entries follow a
fairly rigid layout that lends itself rather easily to a form, yet we're
still inputting them using a single big textarea.
Though that's not to say we couldn't still do better than we are with a
general purpose wiki engine. I still stand by my earlier suggestion that
we drop the requirement that everything WMF uses has to be able to work
for others right out of the box using only PHP. We should use PHP when
possible, but it shouldn't be a limitation.
--
Alex (wikipedia:en:User:Mr.Z-man)