[Foundation-l] [Commons-l] 1.6 Billion USD to spare? How aboutliberation of some pic...

[mike.lifeguard]

>There are many improvements that could and should be made to MediaWiki
>to better support a wiki where the basic unit is a media file, which
>should be equally accessible in as many languages as there are
>Wikipedias, and a good search result may throw up dozens of equally
>valid results, not just one.
>
>We are repeatedly running up against the limits of trying to create a
>structured database using a freeform wiki.
>
>I have the impression that the developers and the Board are somewhat
>aware of Commons' wishes and concerns (although naturally no one makes
>any promises :)) and when the new software developers are hired I hope
>and believe our requests may start to be seriously considered.
>
>In general I share Florence's wish for a MediaWiki roadmap to be
>developed during this year.
>
>cheers,
>Brianna


Brianna's absolutely right, but this isn't limited to Commons. There are
many project that could really do with significant expansion in the
capabilities of MediaWiki. My own project (enwikibooks) has a wish list
(surely incomplete) that I've posted at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Mike.lifeguard/Wish_list.

Certainly Commons is using MediaWiki for something even more different from
an encyclopedia than Wikibooks is, but both projects (and others) really
need to have some of their technical issues sorted out. I look forward to
seeing how these requests are handled. Of course these aren't the highest
priority, nor do I expect that they would be, but some acknowledgment that
there are shortcomings in the software when talking about non-Wikipedia
projects would be nice.

As well, perhaps Florence would respond to both the above wish for Commons
as well as Wikibooks' wishlist? You solicited this list from us on
textbook-l, but we never got any feedback (even an "I don't know" or "that
will never happen" is really the bare minimum).

Thanks,
Mike.lifeguard