Erik Moeller wrote:
A combined watchlist is a project of its own.
If would make collaboration on meta-stuff much more easier.
What is Wikipedia documentation and what is MediaWiki documentation? To me, Wikipedia "documentation" is mostly policies, community pages and the like. These really belong uniformly in the Wikipedia: namespace and not on Meta.
For instance there should be an article on "Links" on Wikipedia describung a) how to make links and b) when to use and not to use which kind of Links. You cannot seperate it entirely. At least two pages should point to each other - this link is missing at the current documentation at meta.
How do we get people involved in working on the Meta documentation? E.g. on Wikipedia:
- Remove all MediaWiki documentation from the Wikipedia: namespace
- Redirect and link to local Help: pages where needed.
Needed in every almost case (but better not with redirects)
- Add a [[Template:Obsolete]] to all local Help: pages:
"The documentation is currently being consolidated on http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myhelpnamespace:Contents - please do not edit these pages anymore and edit directly on meta instead."
This Template should contain an "edit this page at meta"-link.
- Protect all Help: pages.
Wikipedia:Links => Help:Links => Meta:Help:Links
At least one link to much.
So, essentially, by locking people out from doing it locally ;-). It will be a bit ugly in the transition phase but it's certainly workable.
Thats the only way to do it. But Meta:Help-Pages should automatically be mirrored to local Wikipedias during the process and not afterwards.
The Help: namespace of individual projects should not be used for editing but for importing only (maybe some custom Help: pages and some header/ footer changes, but that's it). The Project: namespace is for project- specific information.
Does importing work yet?
Wikimedia is more than just Wikipedia. That's the whole point of putting it on meta - not giving preference to any individual project in maintaining the documentation. For a Wiktionary, Wikibooks, Wikiquote or Wikisource user, editing pages on Wikipedia is no easier than editing them on Meta.
Well, MediaWiki is mainly designed for Wikipedia. You drive other Wikis with it, but for thinks like Wikitionary, Wikiquota, Wikievents and other *Databases* it does not fit very well. Wikipedia is like a fulltext database (remeber askSam?) but without a search-engine :-(
Furthermore, the best way to educate our editors that this is a cross- project documentation is to put it on Meta:. As long as editors have a feeling that they are editing on Wikipedia, they will write specifically *about* Wikipedia.
Thats right but using and editing documentation should be made as simple as posible.
Jakob