I support what Angela said.
You should keep in mind that when a grant inquiry is made, we are not as
specific as to say "we would like money to create a new project doing
this and that". Actually, what I could come to fear would be that we
hesitate sending grant proposal, in fear of receiving money for a
project which would not be supported afterwards...
This said, I agree that grant requests should be more visible. The
problem is that basically, except for Danny who did a lot, the board and
Sj and Brian who accepted to help me, I think no one has made much
effort in the direction of grants (sorry if I missed someone).
When it turns that doing such work is not raising interest, one tend to
give up talking about it, and just manage alone.
For example, I recently sent an inquiry letter to National Geographic
and told one english editor working on the topic concerned. I had no
comment whatsoever (thank god, I had some feedback on fr :-)). Well,
next time, I do not think I will contact that user again if the inquiry
is accepted.
People motivation to have others involved can be seriously hurt by lack
of reaction.
I think that you are correct that grants should be discussed openly, but
this can only occur if there is feedback from the community.
As for wikijunior wikireaders having opposition or be largely considered
as a fork, I currently see no evidence.
Rebecca a écrit:
Of course we need money - but this was a specific
grant for a project
which, like Wikispecies, was not previously on the agenda, and if it
had been discussed at all, had received negative responses. It's not a
small thing, and would resemble a significant fork. So, considering
this - and considering what Wikinews is currently going through - and
Wikiversity will soon have to - in the aftermath of the Wikispecies
fiasco, I'm a little bemused that this is being given the same
treatment as was so controversial with Wikispecies.
If Wikimedia is going to be applying for grants, it'd be nice to see,
as happened with the NEH grant, discussions over whether we actually
want to go for said grant, and if we are prepared to meet the
conditions that that would entail. In that case, it was decided -
largely by the community - that the proposal wouldn't go ahead - and
that one didn't involve a considerable fork of the project.
-- ambi
On Tue, 26 Oct 2004 06:58:41 +0200, Anthere <anthere9(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
I would like to perhaps make a comment on it,
which I hope you will not
find rude.
One of the mission of the board is to find money. This money is not
meant to party, it is meant to make the project work and proceed.
One of the way we can do this is by going for grants.
As such, some dedicated users who care for the project and want it to go
forward (in this case Danny, who is NOT a member of the board) are using
their free time and energy to ask for grants.
Some foundation offered us money to us, for a project that many editors
found great. So, we accepted.
Danny wrote a proposal here :
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikijunior
And invited people to register. And several people already gave their
support. As far as I can see, no one opposed. I do not even see your
opposition.
You are most welcome to discuss the issue over there.
Rebecca a écrit:
The minutes of the last board meeting suggested
that money was being
accepted to found a Wikijunior project. Now, while I can understand
that it wasn't entirely initiated by the board, being approached by an
outside foundation at all, it seems that once again, it's been decided
at a board-level, and there's going to be no discussion in the
community as to whether we actually should have a Wikijunior project
at all. If I remember correctly, this has been discussed many times
before - and has not generally received a good response. Yet now I
hear that it's going ahead anyway.
I just hope that this isn't going to be a repeat of the Wikispecies
saga. If we are going to fork the project, it is not that hard to
throw together a proposal, ala Wikinews - or at least publicly discuss
the darn thing first.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikijunior
-- ambi
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