Elisabeth Bauer wrote:
I want to propose a new idea for a new project:
Wikisomething.
Wikisomething is dedicated to contain
multilingual
somethings of all
different sorts, therefore it spares us the need
to found any new
different projects for speficic things. Moreover,
we could also
integrate our current projects into
Wikisomething.
cordially,
Elian
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 don't think people are against new projects, but
that people are searching for newness in the proposed
project. What is interesting in a project which
actually means to split Wikipedia in a lot of thematic
encyclopedies, like this "Wikicracy" or even
Wikispecies do ? does it do any sense ? I don't think
so. If anybody has a real new idea what can be done
with wiki-technology (the technology most easily
available for our projects, but other things must be
doable. Some kind of atlas could be great, but doesn't
seam to be doable for the moment), it should be great.
But wikicracy already exists : it's called wikipedia,
and it's collecting much more knowledge (except
politics, I mean) at the same time.
Interdisciplinarity is one of the things making
wikipedia so cool, in my opinion, so 'm not for
splitting it in subprojects, because this aspect will
else be lost.
Wikiversity is a great idea, and I voted for it, even
if it's maybe not doable with the means we have today.
It's an exciting project, and if we are able to do it,
it will be fantastic ! People learning freely and
efficiently knowledge able to change their life, maybe
one day acquiring a degree by that way, all over the
world.
The same for Wikimemories : a mankind rich of all
human experience. Long term consequences overstep
imagination.
Traroth
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