David Friedland wrote:
On behalf of Kingturtle, who claims to be unable to post to the list, I would like to call everyone's attention to his post on:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration
He says:
Many of the higher level decisions regarding wikipedia are not discussed or made within wikipedia-proper, but are instead discussed and made on WikiEN-l. Not all have the ability to post to the mailing lists; this results in cutting out some people from important dialogs. In actuality, there is close to nothing that needs to be said in WikiEN-l that cannot be said in wikipedia-proper. I would like the arbitration committee to hear my arguments for the shutting down of WikiEN-l. You can call it User:Kingturtle v. WikiEN-l.
I disagree with this. There are plenty of ways to post to the mailing list, from plenty of free web-based email services.
I also would much prefer discussions take place on a reasonable forum designed for discussion like a mailing list, instead of an unreasonable hack like using a Wiki to simulate a discussion forum, which has no threading, no message management, no "read all new messages", etc.
In short, I'd strongly dislike any important discussions taking place on Wikipedia, unless we move from a Wiki system to a real message-board system. And by a real message-board system, I mean along the lines of what Slashdot and Kuro5hin have, not along the lines of vBulletin, which does not support fully-threaded discussions.
-Mark