[Textbook-l] No new wikis

[Toby Bartels]

Erik Moeller wrote:

>Toby Bartels wrote:

>>Erik Moeller wrote:

>>>Anyone is of course free to start their own project on their own servers,
>>>but a Wikimedia brand project should have support from a substantial
>>>number of, er, Wikimedians. We're not a wiki hosting provider.

>>Since when does Wikimedia take votes to make these decisions?

>We never did. I proposed that we should start.

And we'll see how much support your proposal gets. ^_^

>>A substantial number of Wikimedians /does/ want to do Wikibooks.

>Certainly.

Yet you imply above that we can't know this without having a vote.
I agree with you that a project must have the support of a substantial number.
How much is substantial? you ask.  Enough to get it happening, I reply.
This is not determined by votes, it's determined by action.
There's no reason why a project must have the support of a majority.
For example, I've never been particularly fond of Wiktionary,
but that's all right -- I just don't use it myself.

>>I don't need any vote to prove this.

>A vote would help to determine if there are many Wikimedians who are
>against the project. I would have voted against the Wikibook project in
>its present "Textbook" form, for example. There are many projects where
>there will be dissent among Wikimedians on whether they should be operated
>by Wikimedia or not. Take POV projects like Disinfopedia, for example --
>I'm sure there are many Wikimedians who like the idea and would love it to
>run under the Wikimedia banner. But many others would be against this,
>either because they see NPOV violated, or because they see *their* POV
>violated.

NPOV is a special case.
A project that violated NPOV would draw Jimbo's ire,
and the Wikimedia Board of Directors would stop it
(assuming that Jimbo retains /any/ significant influence there).
But I'll assume that you can come up with an example
that doesn't fall into this special case.

>In that case, it would not be enough to simply say "Look, it's quite
>obvious that many people want this, so quit yer whining already." A
>formalized voting process after the project plan has been finalized helps
>to address such concerns, and makes sure that a large number of
>Wikimedians is exposed to every new idea -- if not in the planning phase,
>then in the voting phase -- and gets a fair chance to voice their dissent.

In the case of the Wikibooks project, I don't know what a vote would do
to draw people's attention more than what has already happened.
You are commenting! and your concerns about excluding cookbooks
are even being addressed.  (I'll even support you on a change of URL.)
The process has been perfectly out in the open.

>The alternative would be to let Jimbo decide in each individual case.

Another alternative is to allow any project with enough interest
that a developer will write the necessary code and people work on it.
Then modify that by allowing Jimbo (or rather, the Wikimedia Board)
to stop projects that violate NPOV (and a few other rules,
like educational purpose, that we can decide on by consensus).

Potentially, there's an issue of the finiteness of Wikimedia's resources.
Perhaps we get so many projects that we bog down the servers!
OT1H, Wikibooks isn't creating more users now, hence no more load.
But OTOH, potentially Wikibooks, Wiktionary, and Wikipedia together
could manage to /draw/ more users, hence more load, than only two would.
So, we may have to start making decisions about resource management.
But there's no need to institute procedures now
for problems that may never arise -- [[Wiki:YagNi]].
(Mind you, that doesn't mean that /you/ can't start planning for it!)


-- Toby