[Foundation-l] Re: Positive discrimination related to smaller communities and projects

[Erik Moeller]

Brion-
> Sites like Wiktionary or Wikinews are not really suitable for a wiki to
> begin with.

I beg to differ. If that was the case, we wouldn't have managed to write  
1000 decent articles in the last few months on the English Wikinews alone.  
To me, wiki is not as specific a thing as you seem to suggest. It is about  
utilizing the creative energy of all users to the largest extent possible.

I am on the record as opposing the implementation of my own project idea,  
the Wikimedia Commons, before the necessary software was written. It was  
launched a bit prematurely; because I didn't want to see it fail, I then  
wrote the basic cross-wiki image transclusion code to make it at least  
usable. So, I have taken your position in the past.

However, I also know that once a community exists around a certain  
project, the pressure is a lot higher to make the necessary software  
changes. For each new project, it is important to answer a simple  
question: Will it be possible for useful content to arise using the  
existing technology? If the answer is yes, then it may very well be  
advisable to get the project started, and let the community push for the  
software changes they need.

For Wiktionary and Wikispecies, a plan was lacking. It was more of a "We  
should do this" thing. A guy named Fonzy asked one of the developers to  
set up Wiktionary, and it was done. This is not the case for Wikinews. We  
had a plan. We knew what was missing. We could make an educated guess  
about how far we could go with the current software.

We also now have a good idea what we need. But as I will continue to  
insist, the code changes are only likely to be implemented in a timely  
fashion if we pay for them.  Now, as for whether these changes should be  
part of MediaWiki proper, I strongly believe they should. The convergence  
of wiki and weblog technology is a process which we should lead -- just  
like Wikidata, this will allow MediaWiki to boldly go where no wiki has  
gone before. I am not open to the argument that we should not do something  
new and different just because it is new and different. If it doesn't  
work, if it doesn't scale, if it makes life harder for our existing  
userbase, that's another story

> I think it's unfortunate that people have so casually thrown
> "Wiki" on the front of the name and slapped up a new project wiki
> without any actual plan for making it work.

Hmm, who created the German Wikiversity again? ;-) I strongly believe that  
every new project needs a plan and a vision, and an affirmative answer to  
the above question: Can we create something useful with the current  
codebase? In the case of Wikinews, I believe these requirements were more  
than met. Now the ball is in the Foundation's court again.

Regards,

Erik