[Foundation-l] [Wikitech-l] Implementing the Babel extension

[mike.lifeguard]

Something similar happened at Wikibooks. We want a way to count the number
of books we have (as opposed to pages), and to list them. So Ramac and
Pietrodn wrote http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:AllBooks, which
solves that problem quite well. The solution was rejected because it solves
the wrong problem.

 

The real problem is that the software has no way of knowing what a book is -
that is, there is no thing in the database identifying books. That is the
real problem, and once we solve it, we can implement many other solutions to
problems which stem from that (some thoughts at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Mike.lifeguard/Wish_list). As
disappointing as that is for the Wikibooks community (and especially the
developers), it was the right choice. We should not implement an extension
just because it was written - that is what has been proposed.

 

Rejecting this solution is the correct course in this case because here too
the wrong problem is solved.

 

Mike