[Wikipedia-l] Re: I like BBS:es

[Erik Moeller]

Hunter-
> Each of those steps would be to make one act more like other. This implies
> developing one of the paths to the point where an acceptable system is
> achieved. As I have shown, there are no worries to be had about this
> potentially precarious process as I have already hacked through phpbb, and I
> am a pythoneer, thus am very comfortable with the internals of mailman.

That's fine. Just keep in mind that the mailing list functionality needs  
to continue to operate as it does now.

> I have already presented why:specifically to conduct my research and
> development on the wikipedia machine in a completely open fashion. I have
> monitered the lists here over time, and there has even been a thread about
> granting everyone on wikipedia shell access. Were this idea fact by this
> point, I would have had a shell account 7 months ago.

Wikipedia is not a shell account provider. If you beg long enough, you  
will probably get access, but you have to understand that this is a  
significantly bigger issue than sysop access. I would not be surprised if  
shell users could read LocalSettings.php and read the database server  
access settings, for example.

There's nothing stopping you from going to

http://sourceforge.net/
http://developer.berlios.de/
http://savannah.gnu.org/

and setting up a new project for whatever you're trying to do. These all  
provide free hosting and CVS for open source projects. BerliOS also  
provides a MySQL database. So you can develop all the code openly if you  
want to. You can install mailman locally and use the Wikipedia archives  
for experimenting. I really don't see why you would need shell access to  
accomplish anything you are trying to accomplish.

Regards,

Erik