[Foundation-l] Wikiversitophia

Wed May 11 13:09:04 UTC 2005

daniwo59 at aol.com:
>  This whole conversation would be more productive if we were  to
> discuss things like: who are the students, who are the teachers, levels of  
> education, course curricula, teacher incentives, structuring lesson plans,  
> structure of semesters, accreditation, meeting local educational standards  (which 
> are delineated very rigidly), subject matter, interconnectivity between  
> classes, extra-wiki learning, grading, acceptance standards, why and how a wiki,  
> etc., etc., etc.

Yes. Many of these discussions have already taken place on 
[[m:Talk:Wikiversity]] and should continue there.

> Sorry, but claiming that we are starting something new is little more than  a 
> placebo for a poorly thought out project.

Well, first of all, there already *is* a Wikiversity effort on 
Wikibooks, whether we like it or not. At some point we'll have to decide 
what to do with that. There also is de.wikiversity.org, which was 
silently created; I was the first person who publicly stated that it 
should not be considered an official Wikimedia effort.

Secondly, I personally have not advocated launching Wikisophia anytime 
soon and have made it clear that in my opinion, the project needs a much 
better definition and research into its needs before its launch. The 
fact that I am advocating that this process should continue under a new 
name doesn't mean that I want it to be finished tomorrow.

It seems that many people equate discussion with "impatient people 
wanting the project to be launched", perhaps because this is the way 
that things were done in the past. Personally, I think the discussion 
we're having is an important prelude to seriously rethinking this idea, 
and properly defining its scope (I do not allege that I have provided 
such a definition, merely an outline thereof).

Erik