[Foundation-l] Wikijunior as a new Sister Project

Wed Sep 7 21:40:27 UTC 2005

I'm reposting here a comment that was posted in
[[b:Talk:Wikijunior]]:

    During the upcoming September 18 Wikimedia
Foundation board meeting,
    the Board will discuss registering a seperate
domain for Wikijunior,
    presumably wikijunior.org. Presumably Wikijunior
will still be
    developed on Wikibooks, but it will go live on a
seperate site.
    Alternatively, we could have en.wikijunior.org for
viewing, and
    en2.wikijunior.org for editing, which would allow
for a greater ease
    in developing pages, as they could be part of a
freeform
    encyclopedia (on limited topics), rather than the
isolated books
    they are now. If we were to develop off Wikibooks,
I'd like us to
    retain most, if not all of the structure of
Wikibooks, it's worked
    well so far. -- user:zanimum
<http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Zanimum>

What I'm asking is why such a proposal is not going
through the normal 
vetting process required of any new project proposal
or is Wikijunior 
already considered to be a Wikimedia sister project
already?  I 
appreciate the efforts of Zanimum, but I certainly
think that before a 
new project domain is started, the full extent of an
idea like this 
should be fully vetted, and even a formal vote should
take place, like 
happened to Wikinews and is going to happen soon with
Wikiversity.  The 
purpose of the vote is to mainly get a show of support
for the project 
(I have no doubt that there is some major support from
several people on 
Wikibooks, for instance, regarding Wikijunior).  The
vote also help 
critics to try and correct major problems with the
proposal.  In 
particular, there doesn't even seem to be any movement
at all on 
Wikibooks to get rid of Wikijunior, and it pretty much
stays in its own 
little corner of Wikibooks quietly undergoing a
metamorphisis, such as 
the current content clean-up campaign on the
Wikijunior Solar System at 
the moment.

This amounts to, IMHO, another stealth new project
proposal that is 
going through the back door.  I've complained enough
about the new 
project proposal process here that I've had people
telling me to 
essentially shut up and don't bug people on this list
about it.  At the 
same time, I think projects like this need more work
on how everything 
is going to be put together before it should be
started on its own 
seperate wiki, and I've seen no reason why Wikijunior
should get any 
special attention other than it seems like a pet
project of some board 
members.

-- 
Robert Scott Horning

---------

A pet project of who ?

I doubt very much the decision of creating or not
creating a new wikijunior project will be taken during
that meeting. If it does, it will not be following
policy, so will be invalid.

Hmmm, first, I am just discovering this on the agenda
(I heard recent discussions here and there about this,
but absolutely not involving the board itself).

Second, and most important, there are written rules
for proposal of new projects (I think I authored a big
part of it), these are generally approved and they
absolutely not make it possible for the board to just
decide alone such a creation. See
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/New_project_policy

(note with attention the little paragraph about
closing projects. Thanks).

Third, I believe that any participants of the meeting
are aware there is no way such a decision should be
taken by them. This, regardless of them being board
members, officers or chapter members. First, because
the policy mentions only two bodies, board of
Foundation and community. Second because chapters do
not have "power" over content". And we all know this.
So, a vote during the 18th of september to decide a
creation or not just does not make sense. 

So, please do not worry about that :-)

However, it could be a topic of discussion :-)

Anthere

PS: since you mention you do not support current
policy for new project proposal, please take the time
to explain why here :
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:New_project_policy.
There are no comments from you right now. Please
provide feedback on what you do not appreciate. Not
that this policy was set up after the Wikispecies
fiasco, to avoid this from happening again. So, while
my policy proposal was probably not the best one we
could think of, it was certainly better than nothing.
It has already been followed for wikinews and now will
be for wikiversity. 

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