Requests for comment/Shadow namespaces

A lot of this depends on the implementation details of global scripts (cf. 39610). However, in either implementation, it would be possible (and advantageous) to have a central repository somewhere.

Scope
For the purposes of this RFC, we're looking at least:


 * Global gadgets (bug 20153)
 * Global Scribunto modules
 * Global templates??? (bug 4547)

commons.wikimedia.org
Outside project scope? Already treated as a central (media) repository with precedence support (where will use the Commons version, unless a local version exists).

wikidata.org
Outside project scope? Also doesn't really exist yet.

meta.wikimedia.org
A number of cross-wiki items already largely lives here (global blocking, global title blacklist, global spam blacklist, global user rights, etc.) - but these are administration rather than content sharing.

mediawiki.org
Suggested at:
 * Thread:Talk:ResourceLoader/V2 testing/Questions about permission model and developer workflow
 * ResourceLoader/Version 2 Design Specification

MediaWiki.org is its own community and its own wiki. It will likely have local needs that could conflict/get in the way of global needs. It probably makes sense to treat mediawikiwiki as a documentation wiki for the MediaWiki software.


 * What is the nature of these conflicts? If we don't use Git, IMO mediawiki.org is the next obvious choice; there's a community here already that does a lot of wiki gardening/gnoming, it's got visibility through lots of inbound links, it's where we coordinate a lot of the larger development efforts, and it serves both WMF and third party users. The main disadvantage that I could see is that code activity could become a little bit overwhelming in Special:RecentChanges and such, but if that became a real problem it could probably be solved with filters, in the same way that translations are filtered by default on Meta.--Eloquence (talk) 08:49, 4 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I had to look up who wrote the line about conflicts in the page history. It was me. I can't honestly remember exactly what I meant when I wrote that. I think the idea was that mediawiki.org would have its own modules/templates that serve mediawiki.org (for example, Template:Extension) and there would be naming conflicts/collisions between these pre-existing templates/modules and newer global templates/modules. Basically you're starting with polluted namespaces (Template and Module) on mediawiki.org, as opposed to a separate new site (e.g., scripts.wikimedia.org), which would have empty Template and Module namespaces.
 * Generally, we need to put a lot more thought into global everything (global user pages, JavaScript gadgets, Scribunto modules, wiki templates, CSS/JS user subpages, user watchlists, etc.) before it turns into a real mess. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:26, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

scripts.wikimedia.org
Hmmmm. Create a new wiki? Do we want a wiki where it's all (or mostly) developer-types running around? There are a lot of features of using a separate dedicated wiki of some kind for global scripts.

scripts.mediawiki.org
Are we serving Wikimedia wikis or any MediaWiki user? This could always be a redirect as well, of course.

Licensing

 * Free software license for (global) gadgets on wikitech
 * en:Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 98