[Foundation-l] [WikiEN-l] Meta:MetaProject to Overhaul Meta

[Gordon Joly]

At 22:51 +0100 30/3/06, David Gerard wrote:
>  >  Can you give us a little more context? I can see that there is a
>>proposal to create a separate meta wiki just for the english
>>wikipedia, presumably because many things currently on meta.wikipedia
>>are not really applicable to other wikipedias?
>
>
>This isn't a proposal for an English meta at all. It was an attempt to
>make Meta actually useful as a cross-project work wiki, rather than a
>disorganised collection of historical documents with a few working
>pages camped out in the archaeological rubble.
>
>Linuxbeak started the latest attempt ( [[m:WM:OM]] ); Jimbo gave his
>blessing, but warned that many had tried and failed before. The reason
>appears to be that there are enough people who like it as it is that
>they don't care it's all but unusable and frequently actively
>misleading, and that those of us who would like a cross-project work
>wiki are regarded as a bunch of dicks for trying.
>
>Anthere has also said, when asked directly, that there is an active
>meta community but they don't actually do their work on meta, rather
>on mailing lists and IRC. Which doesn't sound to me like a work wiki,
>but evidently does to her and others. So I proposed a "meta2", which
>can actually be used as a work wiki. The current meta incumbents have
>decided this is in fact a proposal for an en: wikipedia Meta, when it
>wasn't actually anything of the sort, but anyway.
>
>Meta is evidently not a cross-project work wiki or service wiki for
>other projects, but a separate community unto itself, somewhat like
>Commons. (Recall en:'s problems with vandalism of images stored on
>Commons, and how we eventually had to resort to storing featured
>images directly on en: owing to the recalcitrance of Commons admins
>who insisted they were an independent project, never mind Commons was
>*invented* as a service wiki.) I'm not entirely sure what the point
>is, but I'm sure someone will follow up with what makes a wiki where
>the community do their actual work in IRC and mailing lists into a
>work wiki whose use is clear to those not in the inner circle.
>
>- d.


Can I just add my name to the list who have complained in the past 
that Meta is not useful for some aspects of our work? I was concerned 
that information about the inception of "Wikimedia UK" was hard to 
find, duplicated etc. This meant that many volunteers who might have 
taken part got lost on the way or may never have known about the 
existence of the team (who worked very hard and drank some good "real 
ale" on Sunday afternoons:-)

The main difference between, say, IRC (and email) and a wiki is that 
a the former are linear (by timestamp) and the latter (a set of Wiki 
pages) is not.

A recent example of "Wikimeia UK" existing on a island was that 
(previously discussed) total lack of any involvement from Welsh 
speakers, who may or may not live in Wales. If "Wikimedia UK" wants 
to be inclusive, and democratic, it has to open the doors a little 
wider, and not live in "Meta Space", but In Real Life.

Hence, I would submit to you that Mediawiki 1.5.x and 1.6.x may not 
be the "magic bullet". A wiki is poor tool for many jobs.

-- 
Gordo (aka LoopZilla)
gordon.joly at pobox.com
http://pobox.com/~gordo/
http://www.loopzilla.org/