On 11/14/2013 12:53 PM, Nathan Larson wrote:
> Is there reason to think that a decentralized system would be likely to
> evolve, or that it would be optimal?

Yes.  Wikimedians are motivated to maintain Wikimedia sitess.  I don't
think it is likely that they'll have an interest in maintaining a list
of non-spammy, non-Wikimedia sites.  Using Meta to host the list implies
that there is an interest in the wiki-world outside of Wikimedia.

> It seems to me that most stuff in the
> wikisphere is centered around WMF; e.g. people usually borrow templates,
> the spam blacklist, MediaWiki extensions, and so on, from WMF sites.

Right.  But here you have people re-using the work that the Wikimedia
community has made available -- work they are already doing.  It happens
to work elsewhere, but it is focused on the Wikimedia sites.

> It's just usually more efficient
> to have a centralized repository and widely-applied standards so that
> people aren't duplicating their labor too much.

True, but I don't think centralizing on Meta gives you the efficiency
benefits you want.  You're not re-using work that already happens on
Meta.  Instead, you're asking them to do work that they haven't (yet)
shown an interest in.

And, while MediaWiki extensions are available from MediaWiki.org, a good
number of those extensions have nothing to do with the WMF -- they're
just hosted here.  Several extensions are just hosted on github.  Some
don't even have a reference on MW.o.

This is a problem of community-building, really, and the work of
WikiApiary is good step in that direction.  I have discussed plans for
MW 1.23 (https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/54425,
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Opt-in_site_registration_during_installation)
for a way to really get this community-building effort going.

Thanks,

Mark.

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