I have to reply this, though we should move this discussion to wikipedia-l. It is because Brion, you got a wrong idea.
Are you saying that discussion about the site should be
hidden away on a
secret "hackers-only" wiki where people can't find it
instead of the
open-to-everyone meta wiki?
1. The current meta-wiki is dead.
I certainly understand the initial motivation of meta- wikipedia.org. We should talk about development, management, or policy in the different place than English-edition wikipedia or meta?? (It seems apparent that the site should be renamed)
But what kind of contents are there? There is almost anything but inproper in the main wikipedia. There are haiku, september 11, ....
As the saying goes, bad eats good (Forgive me. I can't remember phrase). Weird (at least to most of people) stuff , including non-English contents just makes meta-wikipedia look anything but the place to conduct decent discussion. What if I submited a Japanese essay? It is acceptable in the current policy, but it aggregate the situation because no one can review it.
As I said, if we decided to change the policy of meta- wikipedia, I certain second it. But otherwise, meta- wikipedia seems dead or going to be dead.
Buried on the English Wikipedia where
people coming from other languages won't have a *clue* how
to find
things, and people who don't speak English don't have a
chance of having
their voices heard?
Oh, that is great! I can type even Japanese (I tried. See SandBox)
Anyway,
2. The meta-wikipedia is not multilingual at all and it cannot be.
I don't see any reason that the sole wiki site has contents written in several languages. Sure, technologically speaking, meta-wiki is multilingual, but in practice, is it really? What if I started to post Japanese comments, who will reply to them? If I did, I just only increase the bunch of mess. You can't discuss one theme in more than one languages. That is for sure. The discussion
So, there is no reason to have a multilingual wiki site, hence there is no reason to separate English discussion from the English-edition wikipedia.
3. Practically meta-wikipedia and maing lists segregate the majoriy of wikipedians from the decision-making.
What is now happing is decision-making occurs in the place that most of people don't see. The recent changes in English- edition wikipedia is the critical place where most of people notice even minor changes. In the reality, meta-wikipedia practically separate people to express their voices.
You can speak, but only if you go to travel to Alaska. It is not democratic. The discussion about the policies should take place in where people are actually living.
I say NO to that. Closing meta would be undemocratic,
bigoted, and wrong
in every way.
Closing meta means nothing because meta means nothing.