On Nov 7, 2004, at 1:58 PM, Jens Ropers wrote:
> Would it not be a good idea to move http://wikipedia.sourceforge.net/
> to http://mediawiki.sourceforge.net/ (and make the former URL a
> redirect)?
> The fact that the MediaWiki home page is named
> "wikipedia''something''" just seems to further the oft-encountered
> confusion about our various project names.
The 'wikipedia' in that URL is our SourceForge project's "Unix name",
which was fixed when the project was registered over three years ago.
The SourceForge project signup page explains this; unfortunately it's
in the middle of the signup process and I can't just link to it. (sigh)
So, enjoy some cut-n-paste:
Project Names
Each project on SourceForge.net has two names. The first is a
"descriptive name", which is used on the Project Summary page,
project page titles, the search facility, and when project news
is referenced in SourceForge.net Foundries or on the front page
of the site. The second is a "UNIX name", used as a unique ident-
ifier for the project; the UNIX name is used to build project-
related URLs on the SourceForge.net site, and is used as the
subdomain for the web space provided by SourceForge.net to your
project.
...
• Unix name will NEVER CHANGE for this project
• There will be no way to change the UNIX name once it has been
selected
Renaming your Project
Once your registration has been submitted, there is no way to
change the UNIX name for that project. Though the UNIX name for
this project cannot be altered after the registration has been
submitted, you will be able to change the descriptive name using
the Project Admin interface for the project.
[The 'descriptive name' was changed to MediaWiki quite some time ago.]
UNIX Name
Please enter the desired UNIX name for your project. Note: you
WILL NOT be able to change this name later, so please give this
some thought before submitting your registration.
Now, I think it _may_ be possible in fact to change the Unix name
(though I can't find the documentation reference), but this is a
laborious, potentially disruptive process which could screw up our CVS
repository, break links, etc. It's something they don't do on a whim,
but may do on a case by case basis if for instance there's a major
trademark problem and you simply _can't_ use the name anymore.
All that said, we could relatively easily move the content (such as it
is -- one page) of
http://wikipedia.sf.net to Wikimedia hosting and sit
it at
http://www.mediawiki.org/. But the SourceForge project is likely
to continue to stick with the 'wikipedia' name on the back-end.
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
