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