[Wikipedia-l] Re: Slashcode

[Michael R. Irwin]

Jens Frank wrote:
> 
> On Mon, Aug 26, 2002 at 01:27:56AM -0700, Daniel Mayer wrote:
> > On Monday 26 August 2002 12:20 pm, The Cunctator wrote:
> > > Instead of a wikipedia slash, what we need to implement is something more
> > > like the Yahoo! Groups, where the mailing list has a straightforward
> > > bulletin board interface, which should be hooked into the Wikipedia user
> > > database.Then we'd start getting somewhere.
> >
> > With so many posts to this list I think either your idea or mine would be
> > better than the current situation. Each should be reviewed for their pros and
> > cons (a big pro for Slashcode is that it is GPL and almost ready to go out of
> > the box -- or so I've heard).
> 
> I oppose moving to a web based application. Those are so limited compared
> to a good mail reader with thread support, a kill file for "uninteresting"
> threads and an easy way to discover new articles. (No, Netscape Communicator
> does not qualify as a good mail user agent). All web based bulletin boards
> I've seen up to now can't provide the convenience of a good mail reader.
> 
> If I'm overruled and we are going to do it web based, than we should
> probably integrate it tightly into the wiki markup, making it possible to
> link to articles and to use bold and italic and the other things we are used
> to. But we should have a separate "Recent Changes" from the main one!
> 
> We already learned from using sourceforge's bug tracking tool that we should
> stick to one consistent user interface for everything.

Perhaps we should attempt to use meta to consolidate lengthy or
persistent threads or topics.  

We may need to learn some standard patterns for laying 
controversial topics in ways that present the top level 
consensus overviews and mainstream information while 
preserving the radical fringes ability to evolve their 
views anyway.

regards,
Mike Irwin