[Foundation-l] Re: Poll for Wikistandards

Fri Jan 27 17:15:19 UTC 2006

On 1/27/06, Robert Scott Horning <robert_horning at netzero.net> wrote:
> Kernigh wrote:
>
> >>fyi, i have started a poll concerning '''wikistandards''' at
> >>http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_for_standards#Poll
> >>
> >>
> >
> >Because [[Wiki for standards]] and [[Wiki for standards/Vote]] are not
> >linked from anywhere else in Meta (in fact, I only know about them from
> >reading foundation-l), I have posted a comment to the vote page:
> >
> >http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_for_standards/Vote#comments
> >
> >-- [[Wikibooks:en:User:Kernigh]]
> >
> >
> I would like to point out that while the vote page seems to be
> structurally sound, take a look at the history page and you will see
> that almost none of the people listed on the supporting side have
> actually cast their votes.  This is merely somebody who has gone through
> the effort to consolodate a list of general supporters of the concept.
>  This is not that they are sock puppets, but that they havn't really
> been given the opportunity to really review the proposal.

You assume that the whole history of the proposal can bw analysed from
the history page. That is not the case here. It is also not correct to
suggest that the people who did create these supportes do not actually
support it. The opposite is true. This vote is a vote, while on the
[[Proposals for new projects]] people actually indicate their interest
in joining. Anyone can vote but I care more for the moment when people
indicate their support.

The suggestions that these people are sock puppets is as rediculous as
the suggestion that the text of the proposal is not known by these
people. They are the ones who provided for the translations..

>
> It would also be useful to try and advertise this interest survey onto
> the other sister projects as well.
>
> I know that the people involved with this want to see it become reality
> and in general I support their efforts.  I think this would be an
> excellent candidate for the seed wiki (or whatever name that goes under)
> to try and see what the group of supporters could come up with.  The
> content that they are trying to develop doesn't really fit on any of the
> current Wikimedia projects, including Wikibooks, which is the most
> likely candidate for hosting content of this nature.

Indeed this does not fit in any of the current Wikimedia projects.
What is the point of suggesting a new project when it DOES fit into
another project ?

The other question, what these people can do is probably best
experienced by actually giving it a go and reevaluate after say a
period of half a year/ a year. When it does not work, end it. When it
does not work, the people who expressed their interest in this
project, will abandon it in themselves.

>
> I wish that before this vote began, that a little more discussion took
> place to try and develop this concept, as well as try to make it a
> broader proposal than just a language standard Wiki.  Yes, there were
> some comments here on this mailing list, some discussion at the
> conference mentioned in the proposal, and some private e-mails on the
> topic, but this page that is discussing the project proposal was only
> linked to the New Project page yesterday.  I hardly call 1 day of wide
> discussion enough to come to a community concensus by even supporters of
> the project, much less trying to turn the idea into a polished proposal.
>  Seeing what the Wikiversity supporters are going through right now in
> developing their revised proposal, I don't see anywhere near that
> quality of work going into this proposal.
>

On one level, how much discussion is needed? This is an existing
community that wants to have a project in the Wikimedia Foundation. I
do not vote on issues that I have no interest in. I have an interest
in this project because it will help the project that I am interested
in. It will help WiktionaryZ.

This project will help the Wikimedia Foundation in that it will help
us when existing standards do not allow us to achieve our aims. To be
precise we always discuss if a language is a language.. There are
people that indicate their intention to join this project who had
dealings with ISO 639. There are languages without defined
charactersets, there are several issues that we need these people to
help us with.

On an other level, when a project can only be considered properly
discussed when it has been discussed in the same way as the
Wikiversity project, it denies that it is a different proposal. The
arguments for these projects are different. Comparing these two
proposals in such a way serves no purpose.

I did copy the people who indicated their support as voting in favour
of this proposal. I did this because these people do not frequent the
Wikimedia projects as a favour. I promissed Oscar that when someone of
this list would remove all of them. I will.

Thanks,
     GerardM