If you take a look at the "No" votes for Wikiversity, for example (see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikiversity/Vote ) the #1 reason I find credible is that there are some technical issues that seem to be preventing new projects from being started. What are those incredible technical issues that are going to force any new project from starting for more than a year from now?

If there are genuine technical issues that need to be addressed so that starting en.wikiversity.org is somehow harder than to.wikibooks.org, I would like to know what those issues are that developers seem to be screaming about.

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.

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.

Elisabeth Bauer wrote: Wikisomething. somethings of all to found any new we could also I know this was in jest, but I would like to know if people on this mailing are fed up with all of these sort of proposals or if they need to be encouraged more. I've been vocal about this in the past, but my impression is that no new major project will ever be started. Period. If you take a look at the "No" votes for Wikiversity, for example (see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikiversity/Vote ) the #1 reason I find credible is that there are some technical issues that seem to be preventing new projects from being started. What are those incredible technical issues that are going to force any new project from starting for more than a year from now? Is there any reason at all to even encourage anybody to start a new project of any kind? Is a general concensus that new proposals should not even be brought up on Foundation-l? I do believe that at the very least there needs to be a few more steps in the development process of a new project proposal before it gets to Foundation-l. I've been a regular contributor to this mailing list now for close to a year, and I've seen a dozen or so new project proposals get posted, most by very well-meaning people and some of them are very well thought out. There are some proposals that are "not ready for prime-time" and perhaps they should be more thought out before they come up here. For most new project ideas, Foundation-l is the very last place that anything will be heard about the idea, not the first. Another related issue is more along the lines of how to publicize the kernel of an idea that may be useful but needs a bit more work, such as the Wikimemory proposal that has been debated recently. Requesting help for such proposals on this mailing list is throwing the idea before a very hostile audience, perhaps unwittingly and certainly without the knowledge of new Wikimedia users who happen to come across this mailing list as suggested by the New Project Policy. Perhaps instead of announcing the formal new project proposal here, there should be some development effort at some Wikiproject or some other sub-community of Wikimedia users that are much more receptive of the idea, and can give some depth to the idea before it comes here. At the very least, if there is to be a moritorium on new sister projects, please make that official policy on the part of the Wikimedia Foundation Board and get that stated on the New Project page, and perhaps even on the front page of Meta as well. On the other hand, if the board does intend to allow some new projects to be started if they are well thought out and have a support community behind them, there should be an official policy to silence the critics who seem to speak in a semi-official capacity on behalf of the board (even though I know they are not board members). If there are genuine technical issues that need to be addressed so that starting en.wikiversity.org is somehow harder than to.wikibooks.org, I would like to know what those issues are that developers seem to be screaming about. Get technical and don't sugar coat it either, and if possible give hard examples. If the concern is purely social and getting the new project community organized, that may be a legitimate concern. I don't think it is in as many cases as the critics seems to believe it may be, and most new projects tend to recruit more people than would normally be participating with Wikipedia alone, so I don't think it necessarily bleeds other projects dry from volunteers. This is also an issue I would be more than willing to debate as well. -- Robert Scott Horning

I want to propose "something completely different": Wikisomethingelse! For all the multilingual something else, that is outside the scope of Wikisomething.