[Foundation-l] On certain shallow, American-centered, foolish software initiatives backed by WMF

[MZMcBride]

Teofilo wrote:
> The WMF has been recently backing softwares that are a breach of
> "Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not" (1). Recently a totally stupid pink
> heart was added to user talk pages, making people believe it is
> Valentine Day everyday, with the result that Wikipedia is now being
> used as a social network or a game.
> 
> [...]
> 
> (1) 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:NOT#Wikipedia_is_not_a_blog.2C_webspace
> _provider.2C_social_network.2C_or_memorial_site

I think the term you're looking for is "wikiafication". Maybe
"Wikiafication"? I suppose it's not quite genericized yet, so capitalizing
it probably makes sense.

I've had a draft e-mail sitting around for months now that I've been meaning
to send on the subject. MoodBar, WikiLove, etc. are all forms of
Wikiafication. This is dangerous, as Wikia largely sucks, so any attempted
emulation of it is a risky proposition. That isn't to say that Wikia gets
nothing right, but for the most part, it's a pretty bad user experience at a
social and technical level.

There is also the tangential issue that mingling Wikia
development/engineering projects with Wikimedia development/engineering
projects further erodes the already tenuous divide between the two
organizations. There's been talk (more than talk, really) of Wikimedia
working with Wikia on projects such as the parser rewrite, as it serves both
organizations' interests. That's true, to be sure, but the costs of further
close collaboration may outweigh any benefit.

MZMcBride