Jay Walsh jwalsh at wikimedia.org
on Tue Feb 26 17:17:41 UTC 2008
Wrote;
I look forward to lifting this group up again and discussing some of the projects I'd like to bring to fruition, all of which could benefit from your support, ideas, and enthusiasm. I look forward to seeing the list active soon! …………………………………………………………………………………………………………. Hi Jay, Hopefully the dust is starting to settle for you now, and you might be talking to Mike Snow, who probably has a good perspective on what’s where around the WMF comms networks. You’ll know he does much of his talking over at Wikback. http://www.wikback.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=cfrm You can see that Sean is trying to resurrect this part of the WMF world, but it would be good, with your fresh eyes, to get some overview of what you see as the WMF’s priorities. It would also be useful to get an idea of what you see as the main interactive comms ‘outlets’ for including people into conversations. WikizineChat, etc.
I’m hoping you might see your job as attempting to
bridge the gap between various communities that fall under the Web 2.0 banner.
WMF’s communities, like most others, are focussed on a particular tool.
In our case it’s one that is good for producing libraries of
(unclassified) information. Its equivalent community in the web design space
would be the sitepoint community, where web designers tend to congregate. I’ll
point you at their forum page to illustrate how it looks when an environment
has around 3,000 people reading and talking at the same time. http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/
It may also be useful, if you are discussing this approach
in the hallowed San Fran walls, to refer to this document, which is a
presentation given by one of your countrymen at the Canadian research Council. http://www.slideshare.net/Downes/oers-in-sustainable-perspective/
. The main thing which interests the National Research Councils is how they
might develop their “Platforms for Collaboration”, and tie them
together. http://www.pfc.org.au/twiki/bin/view/Main
Obviously, if the WMF communities can act as a catalyst here, to help the
institutions understand the tools and develop a global model (instead of just
the usual National ones), their mission will be progressed.
As you might see, I’m suggesting a strategy here that
might have the WMF playing a central part in the development of global virtual libraries.
At the moment I can’t see how this might be possible until the various communications
tools offered to WMF communities are at least as attractive as others offered on
the Web. I’ve made a note on the CPG page about Skypecast, where they are
having some real problems ironing out the bugs. So far as the real time stuff
in your end of the world, the SDSC has an initiative which looks at doing for
moving pictures and talk what a wiki does for static ones and text. http://www.scivee.tv/about . I mention
this as Erik seems to have an interest here.
I we want to make an impact on the WMF communities, and have
them make some impact on others, then you should know that the SDSC is one of
many nodes around the world who, together, act as the Accessgrid http://www.accessgrid.org/ which is like
a grown up Skypecast. I’ve made the suggestion a number of times that if
the WMF was to approach this community, and collaborate in some regular
sessions (perhaps for Wikimania), then both communities might just “get it”,
and the National Research Councils might discover how to tie their National
networks together. Regards, simonfj