[WikiEN-l] Re: Game-playing on Wikipedia

[Tim Starling]

I like the games, personally. A long time ago, I considered writing a
special games extension for MediaWiki, for the purposes of encouraging
social interaction and community building. I didn't get around to it,
but I'm happy that it happened anyway. Of course it would be better if
it was on a separate wiki, and I'd be happy to set up such a wiki on the
Wikimedia servers, if the community is in favour. Perhaps it could be in
a subdirectory.

The problem with putting it on wikicities is mostly psychological. It's
on the wrong side of the virtual boundary which surrounds our homey
little region of cyberspace. I know some people *want* it outside the
boundary, I would ask them to be tolerant.

It would be outside our mission to offer these games to anyone other
than Wikipedia editors. I wouldn't want to see it become an
independently advertised Wikimedia project. We can put up barriers to
entry which discourage outsiders, for example requiring a Wikipedia
account. The user interface is probably the biggest barrier -- honestly,
who would play chess on a wiki other than a Wikipedian? It's very quaint.

-- Tim Starling