On 11/14/07, Peter van Londen londenp@gmail.com wrote:
So in short: I would welcome to start with Wikiversity within the Wikibooks project, having a separate entree (a redirect from nl.wikiversity.org) but not splitting up the community. At least not until we are bigger and until the idea behind Wikiversity stands.
Thanks very much Peter. :-) However, I'd like to counter the argument that creating a Wikiversity will automatically involve splitting the existing Wikibooks community - because it is entirely possible (and I've seen this myself) that creating a new project with a substantially different goal will attract a *new community* of people. People are inspired differently by the name Wikiversity than with Wikibooks (and vice versa) - some people might not be motivated to contribute in one, but they will be in the other. And of course, some people will move between both projects, cross-pollinating initiatives, and looking for ways to collaborate and share (which should always be the goal, in my opinion). So the argument that a split will *necessarily* be dividing both projects too thinly does not hold true for me (even though it might do in certain ways and circumstances).
I think the key to this is, as you say yourself, definition of the project(s). Wikiversity is understood differently by many of its contributors - and I really don't know what many people 'around the edges' understand of it. :-) (And that example you bring up - Filmmaking - is not, for me, the be-all-and-end-all of Wikiversity learning resources - but rather reflects *one* example of creating educational resources.) So, this is what I'm trying to raise here - how are we to define each project in relation (or contrast) to each other? (Restating a previous question: what can Wikiversity do that Wikibooks never can?) And should we be thinking of "not splitting projects", "splitting and collaborating", or "merging into a larger goal"?
Cormac