On 04/03/2013 03:30 AM, Ori Livneh wrote:
That seems wrong. Of the two, MediaWiki.org is clearly the more successful wiki. It is larger by all measures, and draws a wide pool of active contributors.
I don't know that it's appropriate to put WMF-only stuff on the MediaWiki site. Of course, I'm not totally convinced merging the other way is a good idea other. Although there's overlap between MW proper and the WMF tech, we have to remember they're distinct.
Based on Ryan's email, a merge may not in fact be intended, though I agree that's what "wikitech.wikimedia.org would become the one and only site for our open source software contributors" sounded like.
Semantic this-and-that and ontologies of categories entails putting up rails everywhere and signs with arrows on them indicating which way you should go. That approach will inevitably end up reflecting a narrow, inflexible view of what a wiki is and what you do with it.
There is a role for the semantic web (e.g. Wikidata seems to be quickly heading in the right direction). At the same time, I agree that the wiki must not get in the way of simple writing.
Matt Flaschen