[Foundation-l] How was the "only people who averaged two edits a week in the last six months can vote" rule decided?

Sat Aug 1 01:09:17 UTC 2009

2009/7/31 Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com>:
> On critical complex topics, the Foundation could benefit from more
> discussion and better planning.  Why have we made it so hard to start
> new Projects?

I would suggest that we use the strategy call for proposals to
re-surface some of the most important project ideas that people would
like to bring attention to.

http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Call_for_Proposals

IMO there's simply a lack of community support for a lot of ideas,
either because people feel they are bad ideas, out of scope for our
mission, already covered within the scope of existing projects, or
hard to make work with the existing software. That said, I think there
are definitely many ideas that are worth exploring further.

My personal favorites:
* a shared repository for structured data, the equivalent to Wikimedia
Commons for data (some coherent synthesis of ideas from FreeBase,
OmegaWiki, and Semantic MediaWiki);
* a wiki for the global community of makers to share designs and
prototypes for both functional and entertaining objects, which is
becoming increasingly important as fabbing facilities become
commonplace;
* a wiki for annotated source code examples, similar to LiteratePrograms.org;
* a wiki for standardization;
* a dedicated public outreach / evangelism wiki.

What are yours?
-- 
Erik Möller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation

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