Tim Starling wrote:
Providing a traditional URL shortener with traditional features would be useful, at least for some people, and would eliminate the need to use third-party URL shorteners internally, which have a commercial focus and unknown lifetime. If there was no integration with MW required, it would only take a couple of hours to set up.
Who's using third-party URL shorteners internally? A lot of services would be useful to at least some people (Wikimedians), but the cost of setting up _and maintaining_ such a service can't be overlooked, in my opinion. Yes, it would take a few hours to set up a URL shortening service (if that), but who's going to be responsible for fixing bugs in it, adding features, and doing general maintenance to the service for the indefinite future? There are already a number of Wikimedia services that struggle for limited resources. Before we add another, we must answer the maintenance question.
MZMcBride