WikiMystery 1

The conference committee for WikiSym includes (as you’d expect) people with years of wiki experience. People who wrote the first wikis. People who improved those wikis. People who built wiki businesses.

A bunch of these people are spending a lot of time standing around the conference's MediaWiki installation, scratching their heads and trying to make it do some things that it seemingly doesn't feel like doing. Reasonable things. I don’t know the details.

This is embarrassing.

(Imagine what the software feels.)

My first take on this is that MediaWiki, in specializing itself for Wikipedia, has lost its WikiNature. I'm pretty sure that we'd have a different kind of experience, for example, if we were working with Ward's Wiki . But those are fighting words, and I don't feel like another big fight today.

Anyway, if you're a MediaWiki wrangler and you’d be willing to lend a hand, Email me. I'll put you in touch with those puzzled people.