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. And once the inclusionist/deletionist issue is solved, then I think 90% of what causes disputes on Wikimedia will have been dealt with. Tisane 15:28, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I, and I suspect most of the other MW devs, very much disagree with that technology-is-the-solution-to-all-problems belief. Technology cannot defeat human ingenuity without also defeating itself: yes, we can build better and more effective antivandal bots and scripts, but as long as the systems we build are less intelligent than the humans they are countering (and are not self-defeating no-one-can-edit-therefore-no-one-can-vandalise 'solutions'), the humans can and will circumvent them.  That determination to continue in an arms race which has no reward other than 'lulz', is an entirely social problem, and one that technology can never solve.  Equally, the threads of pride and humility, generosity and arrogance, authority and respect, ingenuity and inertia, that permeate all our communities, are social phenomena: when those intangible concepts oppose or block technical changes which are objectively 'for the better', such as the recent skin change; that is unquestionably a social question, and one that actively rejects any technical "solution".  For as long as wikis are unable to write themselves, they must have communities of humans to write them; and humans are social animals with social problems.  To think otherwise will lead you to write code and features which are not suitable for the jobs you intend them for. Happy ‑ melon 18:27, 1 June 2010 (UTC)