Michael Maggs wrote:
> (1) That the ideas in this thread be captured, and copied to Commons
> under a new project page called (eg) Commons: Outreach.
In my country (Sweden) there was a heated discussion in the 1960s
that universities had become too specialized. Literature
professors didn't speak to professors in chemical engineering.
There was a rough concensus that more interdisciplinary studies
were needed. So, in 1970 when a new university was founded, what
did they do? They founded a department of interdisciplinary
studies. The new department attracted some professors of
interdisciplinary science, which are now about to retire. But the
literature professors and the professors of chemical engineering
still don't talk to each other.
What can we learn from this? We must change the people and the
way they work, not create new institutions.
Wikimedia Commons already has a village pump, and it's not overly
full with discussions. Today I (user:LA2) brought up some strange
upload patterns that I observed in five new users. At first I
thought they were sock puppets for a single, large scale copyvio.
But it is more likely they are students in a science project.
The problem is that we have no way to communicate with them or
their teacher. They have all received the standard welcome
template on their user talk page, but nobody seems to bother.
Try to find the people behind these user names and ask them what's
going on. That would be practical outreach. No new page is needed.
--
Lars Aronsson (lars@aronsson.se)
Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se