On 07/01/07, GerardM gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
When the Wikimedia Foundation wants to make MediaWiki an official project, it has the potential to make this change happen. With this change, the WMF however assumes responsibilities that it currently does not have. It currently does not take responsibility for the way Brion has too much on his plate to finish the many things he did not finish. It can at this moment selfishly urge Brion to do whatever because of WMF priorities.
I agree that it is unfair that Brion's stack gets piled high (I should point out that Tim isn't exactly stuck for things to do most of the time, either) with projects that someone "official" promises at Wikimania, but then bitches about when their arbitrary deadline is not met.
When the WMF takes responsibility for MediaWiki, it should take much more notice of all the other organisations that use MediaWiki and have developed their own changes to accommodate needs that the WMF does not feel for its projects. Doing this will bring the power of all the people who also developing MW, and it will bring the need for integration and support that has not really been addressed up to now.
Agreed; if Wikimedia is really serious about pushing wiki, then it should continue to support MediaWiki in other environments, not just its own. It is reasonable for us to keep the focus of the software, of course - MediaWiki is a wiki engine - but it would be unreasonable to turn around and deprive existing third parties of much of the support and general community that's sprung up around MediaWiki itself.
I don't think, however, there's any danger of this not happening.
If this move is intended to bring more volunteer developers to MediaWiki I am afraid that it is just window dressing. It will not make much of a difference because people come and stay as they like. If you TRULY want more developers, having someone dedicated to coaching the people who are new to the MediaWiki code would make much more of a difference. Having someone coach people who are doing projects and stuff in Universities would really help.
Absolutely! New developers come in all very excited about the thing - they've submitted a few patches, we've generally used those to help mould them into shape, and we've got a feel for them - but they're still very "green" - I certainly was. It would make excellent sense if a more experienced developer was assigned to "mentor" newbies, and I don't mean that in the sense of being up their noses - I mean that in a sense of giving their changes a quick eyeball, and being available to answer the odd email about how something should be done.
Of course, we don't want to abandon eyeballing everyone else's work, either...
Rob Church