Re: [Foundation-l] Proposing New Projects (was Proposal for a new project: Wikisomething)

Dan Grey wrote: I'll post some comments from the Wikiversity vote page to start with: * This project doesn't seem well focused, we need first to stabilize our current projects before starting new ones, and solve technical bottlenecks. Yann <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Yann> 15:51, 16 September 2005 (UTC) *Rgf <http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Rgf&action=edit> 19:37, 20 September 2005 (UTC) Too early. We must mature the other projects before thinking in something so big. *Micru <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Micru> 16:52, 22 September 2005 (UTC) We're spreading too thin. Other projects still haven't consolidated, so it's too early for starting another one. Please, wait at least a year, and solve the technical issues in the meanwhile. I'll also bring up a comment by Brian Vibber on this mailing list: "Our software was written for Wikipedia; our development team has primarily gotten into it from and for Wikipedia, and we haven't really seen much specialized software development coming from the communities for these other projects. " "I would generally recommend against tossing in _yet more_ different new projects when our existing ones are so poorly supported, without a better idea of who's going to support them and with what. " My reply is: What are the specific issues that need to be addressed? I think the problems are more social than technical. In other words, it is not the technical difficulty of trying to turn on a wiki portal for a particular project but rather the social aspect of trying to get people organized to help support the projects. Some of these projects, like Wikibooks or Wiktionary are still tyring to recruit people to join the project and get a critical mass necessary to get the project running smoothly. In terms of what is needed to get some technically inclined people to help write the necessary specialized software needed for each project, that will come in time. Wikipedia has developed a number of unique tools that are already well developed, and for the most part each other sister project takes advantage of those tools as well as they can. Categories, for instance, are all but absent from Wikibooks and are not really appropriate. This is one thing that does need to be revisited for Wikibooks, as an example. On the other hand, Commons uses categories extensively and very few images don't have at least one category, and often have several. I'm not saying that there are any organized efforts on the part of developers, but when people are saying that we need to "wait a year" (I've seen that repeated over and over again elsewhere) before starting any new project, I would like to know what kind of technical issue is a problem. In the case of Wikiversity, is 125 people a sufficient kernel of support to get it going? Is that not enough people that would be able to form a good stable community? From the stand point of those who are objecting to new projects being started, I don't thing 1000 people supporting a new project is going to be sufficient in terms of people willing to do the heavy lifting to get the new project started. Of course, this is up to the board to decide on their own, and the polling is just a way to attempt to guage general community sentiment. They are free to do whatever they want (the board), but there certainly are a bunch of people who are shooting down every proposal, no matter how well thought out and how much support it may have. When objections describe technical issues may be a problem, they seem to be speaking on behalf of the developers even if that may not be the case. -- Robert Scott Horning