[Wikipedia-l] intwiki-l needs to go

Sun Jan 5 18:46:00 UTC 2003

> I disagree. IntlWiki-l should be about non-policy related interlanguage
> coordination issues

The separation doesn't make sense. Because intwiki-l is such a specialized  
list, most people just subscribe to wikipedia-l. Which is fine, because we  
really don't need a separate list:

* Language string and site setup issues should be brought up on wikitech-l  
where all the developers actually participate and can fix problems. Small  
string problems have gone unfixed because people mention them in all sorts  
of different places.
* Coordination issues should be brought up on wikipedia-l where  
participants from all the large Wikipedias will read about them. The whole  
"embassy" idea has been stagnating pretty much because there's no common  
place to talk about it.

By having more international participants on wikipedia-l, people would  
also automatically become more careful about which mailing list to use for  
English-only matters.

As for projects without a mailing list, well, if they use wikipedia-l in  
the meantime, that should greatly speed up the creation of new mailing  
lists. Their posts are just as much noise on the intwiki list: Why should  
the French wiki-ambassador care about the site structure of the Slovakian  
Wikipedia?  On wikipedia-l it would at least be noticed, but saying "use  
intwiki-l in the meantime" is a cop-out that allows us to ignore the  
problems because, after all, it's on a "less important" mailing list.

If we continue to use intwiki-l, the alienation between the English and  
non-English Wikipedias will increase further.

Regards,

Erik