[Foundation-l] meta-discussion for new project proposals

Wed Jun 29 13:39:15 UTC 2005

Sj wrote:

>Hello Robert,
>
>Responding to your last commetn first
>
>>
>>3) Review by "proposal committee".  This is a new step, but I am
>>suggesting that a group of "veteran" Wikimedia (from all projects) users
>>    
>>
>
>This is basically a great idea; though it need not be veterans, just
>users who care about new project development; and it need not be a
>formal committee with elections and terms, just an interest group of
>people who actively care for incoming proposals.
>
That is one of the reasons I put veteran in quotes, although I do think that the people helping out and sending suggestions to project proposals should have at least a little experience with Wikimedia projects in general of some sort.  Probably more important is the ability to have a little patience and be able to explain the interal politics of the Wikimedia community... or even what each separate project is like.  I have noticed a slightly different flavor between each project (Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Wikinews, etc.) where the editing styles are slightly different, even though there are some who move across all of these project.  This even goes to what is acceptable content vs. unacceptable... and is beyond just the "charter" of each project as well.

I certainly think that people who post a project proposal idea should be contacted early by such helpers, and if possible redirected to other projects that could help them out.

Sabine Cretella wrote:

    One thought on that - or maybe more:

    I am quite sure that what already is online from wikipedia to
    wikisource
    can include everything.

    Of course over time there will be changes in conceiving how information
    should be subdivided and then linked. When I read the message about the
    "believe-wiki" I thought: but this is already there ... in the
    different
    projects

There are some projects, like WikiMusic, just as an example, that offer a very different vision for what could be done, and may even require some slight to substantial programming changes in order for the information to be edited.  Of course, such efforts can be folded back onto existing projects, but on an experimental basis my be justified as totally different site.

Another is WikiData, where database type information can be added to existing articles.  This is a totally new concept, and does deserve its own "team" to get it going, but this is more a software developer project rather than something more along the lines of a typical Wikimedia project.

I mention these two projects as hard examples of new project proposals that simply can't be accomodated by current projects.  They really are very new ideas, and things that would help the community as a whole.  And while both of these proposals will introduce some new legal issues, it is not substantially different than what is currently done.  This is mainly new technical abilities and being able to do things in a slightly different fashion.

Finally I want to point out wikitree.org

This is an example of a new project proposal that has simply been developed indepenedently, and is also another very clear example of something that simply can't be accomodated by existing projects run by Wikimedia.  Indeed it is strongly discouraged on Wikipedia, with even pages deleted because of people not having noteriety.  For those not familiar with this site, it is geneological information that is being linked together using the MediaWiki software, but some substantial modifications.  I mention this because it has been previously proposed as a new project to be run by the Wikimedia foundation, but instead has moved out on its own, partly because there was no way to push the proposal through.  It was on the new project proposal page well before the website turned "live".  It has even been left as a "dead" proposal, not even on the main project proposal page.  There is merit to a project like this, and there are funding sources as well to help pay for a service like this... long term funding at that.  Projects of this kind are also going to bring in some very different people into the community that normally wouldn't be working on things like Wikipedia.  BTW, I have also seen several people from Wikimedia projects over there at wikitree, so I know for them at least this isn't a revelation.  I do wish the people at Wikitree success and at the moment it is being done completely out of the pocket of the original organizers.

Keep in mind that my proposal is only to more formalize the process of becoming a new Wikimedia project, not to accelerate the process and flooding the Wikimedia Foundation with a whole bunch of unsupported projects.  Again, I ask that detractors to this proposal come up with an alterative, and if they simply don't want new projects (with general consensus from the community) state that boldly that simply no new projects will ever be accepted, or will come from channels other than the new project proposal page.  Let them know it is an exercise in futility, and that people like Sean Turvey are wasting their breath to even try (or myself for that matter).

-- 
Robert Scott Horning