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I know this is petty, but I kinda hope they build this on better technology than MediaWiki. MediaWiki has lots of annoying pitfalls. For example, there is no native support for threaded conversations. Also they have 2 or 3 different math syntaxes and no consensus on which one should be used where.

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Why not improve MediaWiki instead?

Improvement means change. Change is scary and will break workflows. People will resist.

I made big and small changes to a couple of online communities and believe me, the amount of vitriol you receive from people that are the masters of the domain they carved out for themselves will make you doubt every future decision. Even when it's objectively the right thing to do.

It reminds me a lot of the conundrum large companies have when faced with the prospect of disrupting their own cash cows.

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