User talk:Leucosticte/WikiProject Interwiki Integration

Discussion
See:
 * en:Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab) --Timeshifter 02:51, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Where does it end
I guess interwiki integration could theoretically go on forever, unless at some point a centralized, worldwide database is created to serve all the wikis. We already have methods for integrating namespaces, which are divisions within a wiki. We have also created some interwiki integration for wikis on the same wiki farm. Now we're going to create ways for wiki farms to integrate with one another. But then, what about integration of different groups of wiki farms? (E.g., how will the wiki farm group created by the integration of your and my wiki farm integrate with other wiki farm groups?) And then integration of different groups of groups of wiki farms? And so on. Tisane 14:20, 1 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Indeed, you need to keep a sense of perspective. Where it "ends" is when technical issues become social ones.  As pointed out in the discussion on enwiki, merging, say, enwiki and enwiktionary is not a technical question, it's a unification of two communities, policies, and ethea which is arguably not desirable.  It's easy to sit in enwiki, the largest collaborative project in human history, and make grand plans to merge the entire world into it; but the question of whether that's realistic goes far beyond mere technical feasibility.
 * My suggestion would be to not bite off more than you can chew, and to avoid the social challenges when there is still a huge amount of technical work to be done. There is a huge amount that can be done to improve the technical implementation of the social structure we have already, without worrying about making grander changes still.  Happy ‑ melon 14:44, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure that there are any truly social problems in the wikisphere. Ultimately, technology can solve everything. E.g., vandalism might be viewed as a social problem, if one views it as maladjusted, evil, or whatever to devote large amounts of time to, say, engaging in willy-on-wheels-type behavior. And people devote a lot of time to talking about vandalism, setting up disciplinary processes, etc. But vandalism has a technical solution if, say, ClueBot can detect and stop it from happening and repair the damage. I pointed out too on the listserv that software like Extension:ImageFilter, if improved, could help resolve some debates on morality. Likewise, the inclusionist/deletionist debate, I suspect, has a technical solution, and the key to that solution, as I envision it, will partly be interwiki integration. Wikimedia may not have much interest in resolving that age-old conflict in a way that will satisfy the inclusionists, but I think some of the software used to implement that solution will also benefit Wikimedia. Tisane 15:28, 1 June 2010 (UTC)