Cormac Lawler wrote:

On 6/8/06, Robert Scott Horning robert_horning@netzero.net wrote:

[snip some intersting stuff]

...

So are the various Wikia projects considered sister projects to Wikimedia projects? Local links (not external references) exist going both ways, including to the Uncyclopedia. My understanding was that they were very distinct groups (Wikia and Wikimedia) and the policies and even existance of a Wikia project has no bearing on Wikimedia projects. Apparently this line is being blurred considerably now with the new textbook only philosophy for Wikibooks, and it does have an impact on future content being developed on Wikibooks. Moving the How-to books to the How-to Wikia seems like an attempt (to me) of capturing Wikibooks content without having to do any work, especially given that the how-to books on Wikibooks predate the How-to Wikia. Six months ago the idea would have been considered ludicrious to even suggest removing the how-to books.

-- Robert Scott Horning

Wikia and Wikimedia are very clearly separate entities with different philosophies - as I would put it, basically, Wikimedia is for the dissemination of information and knowledge, whereas the purpose of Wikia is for building communities around common interests.

Do you mean, though, that the 'How-to' books are being removed from Wikibooks to Wikia, or simply used there under the GFDL? I hope it's the latter, but, if the former, which ones? There are very clearly How-to books that belong on Wikibooks (and that would very definitely be useful as part of an accredited course).

There is a group on Wikibooks, following the textbook only philosophy to an extreme, that suggests How-to books do not belong on Wikibooks either, along with the removal of Video Game texts and even biographies were suggested for removal. One of the justifications for this is that Wikia projects exist now for these subjects and as such they are no longer needed on Wikibooks. Yes, I agree that Wikia projects can copy Wikimedia content as far as they care to, as can anybody else including other website developers. The point here is that the How-to books are being copied to another site and then explicitly removed from Wikibooks, with only a link on the "main page" to where the "new" content location.... now on a Wikia site. This is also happening with the video game guides, and one of my complaints about the process, as it seems as though the very people setting up the policies, Jimbo and Angela, have a vested interest in moving the content that goes beyond simply trying to improve Wikimedia projects.

I am not certain how the financial picture of Wikia is right now, but I would guess that it is more of a hobby for Jimbo rather than any significant source of revenue. Still, the suggestion is that this push to move content from Wikibooks to Wikia sites may be financially motivated to help bolster Wikia sites, at the expense of Wikibooks. I know this is a serious charge, and one that hasn't really been completely addressed. Most Wikia sites are supported by advertising revenue, mainly banner ads and Google.

As far as How-to books being textbooks or not, I think they certainly qualify as instructional reading material. If you apply this much more loose definition to what is a textbook, there certainly were some items on Wikibooks that wouldn't even meet this standard, such as the Jokebook. Indeed the VfD for the Jokebook invoked this philosophy, but the defenders of the Jokebook really couldn't suggest that it was any sort of instructional material of any kind. While "How to cause havoc" was also instructional material, it was largely the advocacy of, or instruction suggesting that you do, illegal activity that was the main motivation for its removal.

What has really surprised me, and I think shows how rediculous the drive to remove content from Wikibooks has gone, was the reaction I got to suggesting a formal textbook about video game design focusing on Doom was met with substantial resistance and even outright rejection. I even cited specific univsersity courses and majors from prominent accredited educational institutions to demonstrate that such a textbook would not only exist, but might even be useful for teaching one of these formal courses. I still contend that content like this is being rejected because of the topic alone.

Also lost in all of this is what role stubs might play in the developing of content on Wikibooks, and if some of the content on the chopping block might be useful to be transformed into something much more substantial and textbook like (or at least book-like. Unfortunately, but best example of how this was done to date is with the Monopoly guide, which originally was a blatant copyright violation with some minor changes, deleted and turned into some very substantial content given the subject matter.

I can't say much on Wikibooks' policies, as I simply don't participate in Wikibooks enough, or know enough about its history. Lord Voldemort has some interesting questions here, and I can't resist answering one of them in particular:

"3. Who has control over the overall content of Wikibooks? The Wikimedia Foundation, the WMF Board, the community of Wikibookians?"

As far as I see it: the community has control over the content, and the board bears the legal liability for the content. Jimbo's unique part in this is that he retains the power to dictate policy where he deems necessary, and when he thinks a project has veered off course significantly from its goals or the goals of the foundation. I'm not sure of what other times he has exercised this power, apart from the recent debate about the content of Wikibooks - maybe someone else, perhaps Jimbo himself, can clarify this.

That's all for now..

Cormac

If this really were something about legal liability, such as dealing with copyright violations and a textbook about assassinating the President of the USA, I would be more than willing to remove such content from Wikibooks. Indeed even potentially damaging books such as ones talking about amature pharmacology (using recreational drugs) and making bombs have been removed from Wikibooks already, or are held to a very tight leash. This is something I support and I wish that the video game guide debate was really about this. I fail to see where the legal liability rests, however, to hosting video game guides even under the most relaxed sort of policies permitting this sort of content. Other policies such as requiring the GFDL and maintaining NPOV standards I believe is more than sufficient to keep the tax-exempt status for the Wikimedia Foundation.

In terms of suggesting that Wikibooks become more textbook oriented, it has been suggested that we make the textbooks we do have much more prominent on the front page (this has already happened) and try to make sure books recieving awards such as the Book of the Month also try to follow a more textbook emphasis. I think this is reasonable, and a pro-active approach to try and reward those formal textbooks should be done, with the video game guides and other such books relegated to the backwater parts of Wikibooks. If the concern is that people are linking directly to deep content within Wikibooks that is substantially non-textbook like (as happened with the Wikimania proceedings), invoking the "Wikibooks is not a web hosting service" is sufficient to remove such content, through the normal VfD process.

I would imagine some of the concern over video game guides is about this issue as well, where external websites like a video game BBS or yahoo mailing list is linking to Wikibooks and other Wikimedia projects, using the pages as a semi-private wiki dedicated to that group of individuals. Mind you, this is not one of the justifications for removal of the video game guides, although it would be something I would consider to be a valid argument against such pages on Wikibooks. Based on edit count alone, I would suspect the Runescape price guide was one of those pages that had been (and still is BTW) linked on several external websites where editors of that page have no contact with the rest of the Wikibooks community, nor even know that a Runescape wikibook with more information even existed.

Jimmy Wales wrote:

Robert Scott Horning wrote:

...

There is a group on Wikibooks, following the textbook only philosophy to an extreme, that suggests How-to books do not belong on Wikibooks either, along with the removal of Video Game texts and even biographies were suggested for removal. One of the justifications for this is that Wikia projects exist now for these subjects and as such they are no longer needed on Wikibooks.

This justification does not come from me and makes no sense to me.

If, however, the community of Wikibooks is purging content that does not fit with the initial mission of Wikibooks, I see no problem with that.

Please do not portray things that I have not done, am not doing, and have nothing to do with as being somehow things that I am doing for some alleged financial benefit.

...

What has really surprised me, and I think shows how rediculous the drive to remove content from Wikibooks has gone, was the reaction I got to suggesting a formal textbook about video game design focusing on Doom was met with substantial resistance and even outright rejection.

I would assume that it is quite easy to find a course on video game design, and then to write a textbook for that course, using Doom as an extended example. Why should this be problematic?

Because content has been removed from Wikibooks citing your words as justification for the action. No community discussion was held, just the invokation of your words and the words "not a textbook" as the only justification. If this doesn't come from you, then there are some people who are taking some signficant liberties where it shouldn't occur. I have refused to wheel war on this topic (for the most part), but instead let the content be deleted and try to fight its removal by raising this as a policy discussion, in an attempt to try and "take back" Wikibooks, hoping that other users would also agree that the content shouldn't be indiscriminately deleted without at least a community concensus as to what should or should not be on Wikibooks.

People are leaving Wikibooks over this issue, and I am not the only one who has raised the question that the whole idea of what is legitimate content on Wikibooks is being questioned. My user talk page just had another user ask me if I knew what could be added to Wikibooks as something reasonable, and I couldn't give him a good answer with the current state that Wikibooks is in. I am not confident that even the Wikibooks that I started that have tried to be legitimate textbooks might be spared the wrath of deletion.

...

I even cited specific univsersity courses and majors from prominent accredited educational institutions to demonstrate that such a textbook would not only exist, but might even be useful for teaching one of these formal courses. I still contend that content like this is being rejected because of the topic alone.

Well, I do not agree with that at all.

I'm glad that a bit of sanity has entered this discussion. Thank you for your replies on this subject.

Cormac Lawler wrote:

As far as I see it: the community has control over the content, and the board bears the legal liability for the content. Jimbo's unique part in this is that he retains the power to dictate policy where he deems necessary, and when he thinks a project has veered off course significantly from its goals or the goals of the foundation. I'm not sure of what other times he has exercised this power, apart from the recent debate about the content of Wikibooks - maybe someone else, perhaps Jimbo himself, can clarify this.

Excuse me, can you clarify?

How does [[User:Jimbo Wales]] "retain the power to dictate policy"? Retention requires that you already have the power. When did [[User:Jimbo Wales]] obtain the power to dictate policy "where he deems necessary"?

I understand that someone in the Wikimedia Foundation can dictate policy in exceptional cases where that is required, but I do not understand how the Wikimedia Foundation is organised.

-- [[User:Kernigh]] http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Kernigh

On 6/13/06, Cormac Lawler cormaggio@gmail.com wrote:

To clarify, I meant that the setting (or "dictation") of policy by Jimbo is limited to extreme circumstances - ie., as I said, in cases where he sees that projects are veering significantly from their mandate or that of the Wikimedia Foundation. This has always been the case - but I don't seem to be able to give you a good reference - the best I can do is this page: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Governance, in which he says: "Final policy decisions are up to me, as always" (10th April, 2002) - ie., Jimbo is Wikipedia's equivalent of a 'benevolent dictator' or 'GodKing' (both of which terms he doesn't like, as far as I know). As I said, though, I don't know how many times he has actually stepped in to set policy on any project.

Yes, though it's not clear how this applies to other projects, or other languages. The "God-King" role derives largely from the fact that Jimmy co-created and funded Wikipedia. The other projects were started from within the community, some of them through elaborate processes which involved the Board's final approval. In effect, unless Jimmy chooses to invoke his position as Wikimedia President (which would imply that all his actions are reviewed by the whole Board), the only authority he has on Wikibooks is the one granted to him by the Wikibooks community.

I think it would be foolish to make it a requirement within the Wikimedia Foundation that any new project that is launched has to accept Jimmy as its benevolent God-King for life. There are good reasons we have a Board, however "stacked" it may be, for strategic decisions. And there are reasons Board members typically recuse themselves from decisions where there is a potential conflict of interest (and I would argue that Wikia hosting resources which are to be removed from Wikibooks represents a potential conflict of interest).

Jimmy might disagree that he used any special authority; however, do note that he asked Danny to make him a bureaucrat on Wikibooks outside regular processes in November 2005. He then made _himself_ a sysop to delete the Jokebook and some other materials. While I agree with the deletions, I (and many folks on Wikibooks) disagree with the process. Jimmy has 48 edits on Wikibooks, so he is clearly acting not as a regular editor and contributor. Any regular editor -- even one involved in Wikimedia Foundation matters -- making policy statements of the same nature would probably be ignored, and certainly not get speedy deletion rights.

The desire to provide a clear focus for Wikibooks on textbooks -- we're discussing this on a mailing list called textbook-l -- is entirely legitimate. But this is an initiative that should clearly come from the Board, not from Jimmy alone, possibly through a Resolution. As for Howtos, I believe they should remain on Wikibooks, or we should talk about creating a dedicated how-to project within the Wikimedia Foundation. The latter would be a worthwhile effort, especially if we involve the open source community, which has a great need for such a resource.

Erik

Erik Moeller wrote:

On 6/13/06, Erik Moeller eloquence@gmail.com wrote:

...

The desire to provide a clear focus for Wikibooks on textbooks -- we're discussing this on a mailing list called textbook-l -- is entirely legitimate.

I'd like to add that one question opened up by this is how specialized the project should be. Textbooks are useful as materials complementing regular education in schools and universities, but they are of limited value in distance learning (using eLearning software or not). Similarly, there are many other educational resources, such as audio-based education or interactive education, which are not textbooks.

If we do end up creating Wikiversity, it would be somewhat awkward if all educational resources but one (textbooks) were created there. I think we should have one wiki dedicated to developing resources that directly target an educational context, not multiple ones.

This, to me, indicates that this whole question needs much more discussion at a higher level, rather than just some statements of policy from the top.

Regarding Wikiversity .... there are still some of us advocating that Wikiversity be a standalone project for developing and delivering educational materials of all kinds. When a textbook is ready for Wikibooks or a multimedia animation is ready for wikicommons then the participants at Wikiversity can be trusted to migrate the materials if it is appropriate.

It should not be dictated by outsiders to Wikiversity participants what materials they can control in their own project space for maximun educational efficiency.

The typical argument concerns duplication of data on hard drives and duplication of effort. Regarding the first I hope we can ignore it given Moore's law, the current price of hard drives and the liklihood that Wikiversity will be approved in two or three decades. Regarding the second, writing, studying and wikis are all about duplicated efforts and integration/separation of the same.

It will be a serious damper on Wikiversity's community to routinely have groups showing up insisting local materials be relocated and deleted locally only to find out that the other projects have inappropriately modified the material or otherwise damaged their easy utility by newcomers to Wikiversity.

Personally I think that the anticipated Wikiversity participants can be trusted to work with other projects to locate mature materials effectively. There should be no inflexible mandate built into the project ground rules. To establish an effective pleasant learning environment (the only kind that will prosper) the participants need maximum freedom with minimal effective core guidelines.

regards, lazyquasar

Cormac Lawler wrote:

On 6/13/06, Michael R. Irwin michael_irwin@verizon.net wrote:

snip

...

It will be a serious damper on Wikiversity's community to routinely have groups showing up insisting local materials be relocated and deleted locally only to find out that the other projects have inappropriately modified the material or otherwise damaged their easy utility by newcomers to Wikiversity.

Not sure I understand this. If other projects, say, Wikibooks, made the material into a textbook from what was a collection of learning sheets, well, the learning sheets would surely be always kept at Wikiversity. If material was modified into a more advanced level, then the more basic version would be always retrievable from the history and forked into a new book. It's a wiki, right? Or have I completely misunderstood your point?

Yes you have completely misunderstood my point. All of the other wikis are attempting to converge on high quality reference works. They are all evolving organizational structures which create control points on access to the current and past versions of materials. Ultimately to meet their mission they must control what they serve to the public routinely. This will inevitably complicate their sites and organizational structures. Our wikiversity participants cannot reasonably be expected or required to learn an ever expanding constellation of virtual social spaces to access their learning materials in learning groups that will inevitably be more cross disciplinary than a standard physical learning environment.

All of them wish to capture markets and materials and levy outside influence or control upon the wikiversity learning environment and attract local users. There is a wide range of "buyin" activities which can be levied and undoubtedly all of them will be tried at some point or another.

Personally I do not think wikiversity will thrive if it puts up with this nonsense. Self motivated learners will not put up with this unless there is an overwhelming benefit available.

Initially there will be no overwhelming benefit because we will be learning what works. We will be lucky to provide sufficient benefit such that a few of the people who check us out can afford or wish to stick around and help us develop initial materials and environments.

The most likely result initially of material relocated to other wikis will be votes for deletion by other participants who do not like alien material coming in or feel it is not ready yet. Our newcomers arriving there will make neophyte mistakes and be likely to get slammed by poorly socialized adminstrater or uses that have not been integrated adequately into the local project. Wikiversity has no control of the quality of interaction on other sites yet our participants are required to experience this if we cannot have a local copy of a book or a article or a definition or an index list or a whatever.

Meanwhile wou nevermind.

Saying it is a wiki does change the way people interact in groups and with their environment. If people encounter too many obstacles or too much frustration from the initial environment they will leave and tell all their aquaintenances Wikiversity is a waste of time. It is extremely frustrating to have to go to a hostile foreign environment looking for materials you were told were located in a friendly local environment and then have to deal with the local know it alls who control the disposition and access to the materials.

In a few years when wikiversity can deliver high value for time expended our participants might put up with some of this. Initially it will be a large drain on retention of interest or belief in Wikiversities' viability.

In the virtual environment all other knowledge is only a click away and all other students can shift to and from the focus they are interested in. For example: This mean a group studying automobile modification for racing is likely at times to spread out and find all the factors involved say in designing a breakaway racing frame for the survivability of the driver:

If this band of neophytes finds that the previous classes materials have all be declared high quality and broken up and moved to eight different sites, four of which delivers the material with a smile, two of which require registration for download, one which flashes a request for donation and requires only for the next few days filling out a questionaire, and the fourth does not have the data up yet because it requires installation or upgrade of utilities such as for pdf or a proprietry graphics format but the data has not been shifted back by the poaching volunteer ..... multiply that by thousands of courses in varying states of development! Consider Wikipedia's retention rate of first time editor's measured by subsequent edits. I think it is in low single digits last time I checked. That is a single fairly carefree environment with the provision that initial edits are more likely to be reverted than those by veterans.

What is a Wikiversity newcomer likely to do when faced with a problem in one of four or five sites where class materials have been archived? I suspect a very high percentage will leave and likely not come back soon.

We need to plan for success and minimize local difficulties. It is fundamental in complex systems that clean well known interfaces which compartmentalize or encapsulate problems or critical action or products or services are required to get and keep them working well.

This insistence that Wikiversity be treated as a junior subordinate "partner" from which by policy any other wiki project participant can drop in and shout "good enough finally!" and demand relocation of the materials is designing in a huge group of unneccessary problems that will drain scarce resources from actual challenges that must be met and overcome for success.

...

Personally I think that the anticipated Wikiversity participants can be trusted to work with other projects to locate mature materials effectively. There should be no inflexible mandate built into the project ground rules. To establish an effective pleasant learning environment (the only kind that will prosper) the participants need maximum freedom with minimal effective core guidelines.

regards, lazyquasar

I think "minimal" is right - but I'm also continually aware that we need to provide the rationale to get Wikiversity going (btw, what do you think of the current proposal?). We also need (at some stage) to develop policies that will keep Wikiversity as stable as possible, avoiding the kind of fuss that the Wikibooks debate on 'gaming guides' (etc) has made. Still, Wikibooks has always had policies on its content (though, as this case shows, they needed to be be given further detail), and Wikiversity will have to do likewise - otherwise, there will continue to be uncertainty, and potentially end up with an intervention from Jimbo - which is far from ideal.

Intervention from Jimbo is the least of our problems or concerns. Why do you think he is slow rolling it? He has "god-king" control of a reasonable sane project once and only once at the moment at that is until he says go a head. The nonsense with the nazi books and the game programming guides is nothing but poor judgement or floating a balloon to see how much personal authority and appeal he still has or possibly served some other purpose. He is a fast learner will find different mistakes to make in the future.

You really think Jimbo is going to be dumb enough to show up and shout no original research!!!! if a P'hd is showing a few interested students how neurons works by comparing his current results with published results elsewhere? When it starts to resemble an active lab journal in progress with 30 active neophytes running around doing something useful while watching an actual groundbreaking paper be polished prior to formal submittal to peer reviewed journal what do you think a healthy reaction from the wikiversity at large will be when somebody from another project shouts "no original reseach!!!" then deletes all copies using his stewardship account derived from Wikipedia?

Consider computer software. Are we to tell students they cannot publish code snippets locally under the FDL or GPL to look over because it is orginal material and can be potentially patented?

There are thousands of such issues that will be faced by a general public learning facility and solutions will have to be generated locally based upon what appears useful to the current participants.

As I have stated before wikiversity should not be a place to tell others what they cannot do to establish learning capabilities. The local participants can be trust to shout no no! at any fringe or questionable groups show up with shady or dubious purposes.

You asked what I thought. I already told you six weeks ago I thought the proposal was as ready as it could for submittal.

I saw a few minor changes I disagree with. You are familar with my opinion of hardcoding cozying up to the other projects methods at the onset to ease the political problem of approval. It is buying a whole lot of hassle in the future and it is unnecessary.

The foundation mailing list is continuing to yack yack about their quality control problems and possible approaches to improvement. It will not escape the savvy there that education must be a component of an overall approach to improvement and maintenance as in the long term it is the only approach that help get thing correct in the first place.

Has the committee had a vote yet on when to submit the URL to the revised proposal?

Is there a firm date upon which the committee will have an initial vote upon whether they should schedule a vote on whether to submit?

Is there an active agenda or tasklist which details what the committee's group savvy has determined must be completed before a decision can be made on scheduling a series of votes upon when to review the current task and discrepancy lists and suspenses?

Let me pose you a different perspective. What happens when a newly arriving group forks a wikibook so they part it out in pieces for individuals who will not initially understand the material to review and begin researching so they can prepare lists of questions, charts, animated illustrations, topical papers, lists of online links to more in depth materials, list of online links to primer materials, google search for solution or discussion of the examples or homework problems provides, check the math of the examples, prepare a phonic vocabulary list and glossary of key terms, do a high school class term paper on a key concept or subject, and fifteen other bizarre activities a couple of them have aggreed might be useful to experiment with for pedagogical purposes ...... and the whole group starts at chapter one a few weeks later, spends a couple of weeks studying chapter one with each other and editing the forked wikibook ..... this goes on for eight months and another smaller group is emulating this practice starting at the beginning.

After two years enough is enough. The original three authors at wikibooks become aware of this and when the "current participants of the learning trail" refuse to drop everything and merge not replace back into the original wikibook and delete the "forked" book from wikiversity because of the wasted 50cents worth of hard drive and "duplication of effort" the students fire back a few catcalls and return to their studies. One of the original authors decides this is in violation of wikilove as codified in the wikiversity charter and takes the issue the newly formed Wikimedia Wide Arbcom. The arbcom agrees with the author but the students continue studying and ignoring these extraneous irritants. The highly respected (within some wiki cliqui or community) demands action!!!

How does your committee of proposal designers propose to address the above or similar issues you are inviting by going along with the idiotic contention that there can be only one copy for multiple purposes within the Wikimedia panarama of online volunteer activities?

Should wikiversity establish adequate funding, infrastructure, and value to the online world at large how would you propose to deal with something similar twenty times a year?

When the students get tired of top down and sidewise bureacracy and stage a publicity drive to encourage the donating public to stop and request a hearing from all large grant organization to pitch their case for a fifth fork to try to get it right ...... who should we have make the counter presentations? The Wikimedia Foundation Board? The Wikiversity Board of Regents? Ten volunteers from the honorary elected "Department Heads"?

We want a self organizing and regenerating community, not a series of hassles with external groups or forces with their own interests at stake. A library or encyclopedia is a very different animal from a wikiversity (all online pedagogical methods and students welcome).

I have said it before: If the Wikimedia Foundation does not want the hassle or expense of providing useful reliable robust friendly infrastructure for a viable Wikiversity then we should organize a non profit and establish our own infrastructure. It would be better to start within the existing wiki community ..... access to wiki knowledgeable participants, instant infrastructure, etc but if external forces insist on regulatory access to Wikiversity participants efforts then I think we are wasting our time. People get enough of that hassle in physical environments. They are not going to seek out Wikiversity and help it thrive if the nonsense thresholds get to high.

Try it another way. What is the big deal from wikibooks being hosted at Wikiversity that doe no meet Wikibooks criteria somehow or forked wikibooks being modified and used locally? The entire rest of the planet is authorized to fork a book from wikibooks and modify as long as they insert a pointer back to the origin at Wikibooks. Are they afraid that the various professors around the web who have started posting FDL'ed textbook on university or other web space might relocate in mass to Wikiversity instead of Wikibooks? If so then they obviously have problems that need to be fixed. If I was a prof or class with a draft book ready to go faced with this situation I would be tempted to first place the draft book at Wikiversity and encourage as much use and feedback as possible and then place the more mature product at Wikibooks under their obviously soon to arrive configuration management system. Get the best of both worlds. A stable mature product web accessible to passive readers and an actively reviewed and improve draft which can be periodically proofed and a next edition placed in the premier spot at wikibooks. So why the concern from an online library that an online university will establish its own library rather than deal with them? Suppose we call them Wikiversity's library ..... why do they insist no other copies of books can exist on campus? Do they want our participants highlighting or editing their proof copies that are presented to the world? Wikipedia has that and they are finding they have a severe configuration management problem which must be addressed somehow if they are to move from the existing quality plateau to the next.

Take another case: Term papers or research papers. Eventually a popular subject has groups of aproximately 5 moving through the learning trail approximately every 3 months with some overlap. Each participant is given the opportunity to write a paper and two or three of each five do. About half are high quality while the other half are valiant efforts. After three or four years Wikiversity has a file on this subject of 5X3X4/2 of thirty papers .... fifteen high quality to mediocre and fifteen mediocre ranging downward to poor.

Perhaps this is a growing trend and files are being established in multiple increaing subjects as high schoolers and masters degree researchers arrive for occasional use of Wikiversity assets.

It comes to Wikipedia's attention that this material is not being merged back into Wikipedia and the Wikiversity participants have increasingly started consulting the files. Wikipedia is losing some correctional proofing from these high quality candidate users and worse losing a big part of their neophyte recruitment pool or "new blood" that helps the project maintain its high quality and funding donations. Someone insists that "Wikiversity is not an Encyclopedia" and that these poor (in comparision to Wikipedia article on same subject) topical papers should be deleted so vulnerable students are not exposed to poor material but move on or back to Wikipedia's high grade single page integration and explanation of the entire topic.

Sure enough ... right there in the approved project proposal or charter is the promise to the Wikimedia Foundation that: "Wikiversity is not an Encyclopedia". Two members of the Wikimedia Foundation Board insist that all term papers must be deleted or restricted somehow from the public, only merging Wikipedia editors should have access to a topical paper published at Wikiversity as of two years after its final publishing date. Seven others of the expanded board roll their eyes and cannot be reached for comment. The Wikiversity Board of Regents has been stacked by experienced Wikipedians or Wikimedians who think Wikiversity as the junior partner project must appease cash cow senior Wikipeda.

So .... who or where should this kind of mess be arbitrated? This kind of crap is exactly what we are inviting with the committe's current proposal which is getting lengthier with each edit.

So ... turn it in if it cannot be minimalized to retain maximal future freedom of action and lets get started.

What the hell are we waiting for? Nobody except the committee has tweeked the online presentation or documentation for months. Let's try something, in permaent project wiki space so we can attract participants and start growing communities and intellectual property assets and find out what works.

Stability. We are so far from stability being an issue it is laughable. We will be lucky to find techniques that work well to establsh stable zones ..... local group working guidelines that have stabilized well enough to publish and adopt as inital standard procedures. A wikiversity is a complex place compared to an encyclopedia or a book shelf.

How are we going to enforce local mandates that safety materials must be absorbed and some sort of screening passed to get the chemistry lab section or the GPL'ed DNC data or the design software for alcohol/lox rockets? Are we? Is it appropriate? Is it responsible enough not to? Are we restricted to just pointing at the above types of information to other web sites with appropriate local controls or if such cannot be found or established at least shifting the legal liability?

If we refuse to implement any kind of reasonable local controls do we lose access to the knowledgeable professionals in that field who think wildcatting is too dangerous when dealing with .... cell biology, nuclear physics, earth moving equipment, food preparation, bathroom cleaning, etc.?

We can publish the best and file the rest for future reference or even toss or transfer it as local consensus advises or dictates if we ever attract particpants. Without participants we are wasting our time trying to write policy.

A project proposal is sufficient information to get started. Not a detailed pre design before any knowledge particpants or detailed designers show up. That is true in "stable" field of endeaver such as engineering sewage facilities.

If the Board is requiring detailed policy from your committee before we can get started finding out what works it is a sign of their incompetence or hostility to the project and we may as well get a firm no and move on.

If they want budgeting estimates or contingency plans that is a different issue.

If they give us detailed feedback instead this "no online class" crap then we can generate what is needed to explain how we intend to proceed or get started. "No online classes" is an unenforceable requirement that will be ignored by most of our participants. Groups interacting always find it useful to have a scope, schedule, known task lists, etc. etc. What can you call that but a class? When a random group finds a mentor and asks him to take the lead what is that but an instructor? BTW Budget estimates and contingency plans are seldom put into mission statements. It is rarely a good idea and it always pisses of a project team to be handed a failure mode from above or the customer. The results are seldom pretty.

If they throw standard project management shit back you informally .... scope, budget, schedule .... Remind them Wikiversity is an experimental project and orginal research. We are not proposing to build toasters. We have a lot of flexibility in we proceed if they are legitimately concerned about our resource consumption impacting other projects. Legitimate means they have detailed information to provide we which can analyze to produce solutions.

Consider the kneejerk "No original research". That was put into effect because it was appropriate for an encyclopedia and a dictionary or thesaurus. For them it is brilliant policy ... it makes it easy to deal with the fringe and POV people who show up claiming divine inspiration or alien toasters inscribed on invisible pyramids. It makes zero sense for a broad center of learning or a simple repository of orginal materials for the educational field. People learning things have plans to use the knowledge and they are often creative people. This means original results are inevitable and there must be a way to manage it through our organization or it will create large problems.

What the the hell. Bring it on. We can always dig in or fork as appropriate.

See if all the above crap and the "proposal" debates were on our own wiki at stable URLs we could be marking it up and revising and revoting every someone showed up to make them feel important and recruiting.

We might have a viable experiment evolving into something that could show us what will work for a Wikiversity. Instead we have a committee and designated troll and possibly a few editors wandering around the barren link maze at Wikibooks.

If the powers that be send back some comments when you submit or present our proposal point out to them the efficiencies of working in our own wiki with stable URLs so there is not a bunch of rework migrating the materials and we are no longer cluttering meta and wikibooks. Point out that in the event the project is determined non viable locally this clean approach will make it possible to easily back up the data for possible future sale to the forks or simply a clean delete.

Simple pay me now or later proposition. Admin wiki setup time now, clean backup and delete later or a screwed mess at Wikibooks and Meta with an arduous cleanup later. When they respond we already have the screwed up mess point out the transfers and cleanup could be made by project proponents while they continue to stall. Our advantage is we have chance to attract our early participants back to assist with the fork. You would be amazed at much more synergy, expertise, contacts, etc. a group of tens people can generate over single digits.

regards, lazyquasar

Cormac Lawler wrote:

On 6/15/06, Michael R. Irwin michael_irwin@verizon.net wrote..: ..about 3600 words

I'm not going to respond to all of them, but can I just make a simple point or two..

I don't envisage Wikiversity's content being moved to other wikis when it gets to a standard worthy of another project (ie a book). Far from it. This would be a terrible way of working. Rather, I see Wikiversity developing learning materials which can be used for a number of learning projects/activities - ie. a class/lesson plan with relevant learning material (eg. images, book extracts, audio exercises etc), which can be set out in any way that seems the best way to construct this material into a learning process/course, whatever you want to call it. Keep all this at Wikiversity - no question of moving it anywhere. If people want to do further research or reading, they can go to Wikibooks or Wikipedia (etc) - I don't see anything disastrous about that. Furthermore, if their learning compels them to do so (or if specified by their learning activity to do so), they can improve those articles/books, in order to consolidate their learning. But they will always come back to their learning materials on Wikiversity - this is the basis of their learning - what they do with that learning is anyone's guess.

Unfortunately this is not what the proposal soon to be submitted to (according to the God-King) five supportive stacked Board members lines out for their consideration. It really does not matter what you or I or anyone in the Wikiversity project thinks when we are operational if it has been hard coded that there shall be no significant overlap with any other Wikimedia Foundation project. Wikitexts to Wikibooks. Articles to Wikipedia. FDL'd components useful to two projects and/or the public to Wikicommons, Indexes of linked lists to Wikiscope, glossaries of technical terms to Wiktionary, etc.

If I understood Jimbo's explanation of where we are at the Board has been waiting for six months for the people who wish to participate in Wikiversity to tweak the proposal to resolve the concerns of a large group in the overall Wikimedia community who oppose Wikiversity entirely.

Also, I don't see Wikiversity as being a junior subproject for other Wikimedia projects - on the contrary, I see it as a meta-project of them all. I see Wikiversity occupying a space for people to learn about how to contribute content to any project. I see a space for it to gather content from all other projects to put them to practical use. For example, Wikiversity and Wikibooks have been intertwined since the name "Wikiversity" was first suggested - even though Wikiversity was developed on Wikibooks, an early suggestion was to have Wikibooks as the repository of content for Wikiversity. This is far more the way I see their relationship, and applied to all other projects too. Obviously, it will take time to get to that stage, but that is my dream.

Again it does not matter what even the appointed chairman of the activation committe thinks privately. If the Board of Directors approves the existing proposal as written there will be an immense amount of strife between the large numbers of opponents that Jimbo has indicated are prevalent in the overall Wikimedia community as well as newcomers to all projects.

In medium sized or large organizations approved policies and established guidelines must be followed and the resulting messes cleaned up on an ad hoc basis or after the policies can be revised to something more appropriate and workable.

Finally, I admit that the process of getting this proposal realised hasn't been as quick or even as ideal as I would have liked it to be. However, this is now the final stage, and I personally expect Wikiversity to be up and running by Wikimania, hopefully sooner.

Alright, since you have begged the question I will ask it.

What exactly is the delay in submittal since there has been no significant public comments (public --> not appointed to the activation committee) for months and the only tweaks by members of the activation committee is creep towards top and external regulation of the learning groups materials?

Is the activation committee conflicted somehow regarding basic initial mission or policy guidelines?

Is there a project opponent such as Jimbo alleges are present in the existing Wikimedia community whose concerns must be addressed at the moment no matter how potentially detrimental they look to day to day internal organization and management by the Wikiversity participants localized or singular learning/study activities?

Are you busy preparing an overwhelming bullet chart presentation so you can fly into the next Board meeting in a 3 piece suit and wow them with Wikiversity's polished organizational skills?

Are members of the committee saturated and working as hard as possible to pre coordinate issues with the supervisory committee or the Board?

Are we timing activation to cooincide with Wikimania? If so I will point out that there are a substantial number of people (potential particpant) that are web accessible but who do not have the cash, time, or inclination to participate in a Wikimania. Further, it would be better to have clear progress in place and the site looking active before a grand announcement at a Wikimania so any curious people who checked us out might be interested in sticking around and helping grow the project.

Jimbo says the hold up for the last six months has been no submittal or contact from the project. Despite overwhelming support from the Board for Wikiversity the Board has chosen to refrain from micromanagement and are awaiting only submittal regarding minor comments made to the orginal proposal to act swiftly and decisively to authorize or provide further feedback.

What precisely besides an introductory letter or paragraph providing the URL of the revised proposal remains to be done that justifies several weeks delay? Sorry I do not know when Wikimania is ...... is that several months delay?

regards, lazyquasar

Wow, what a bizarre twisting of history. I have no recollection of why Larry called you a troll, but I suppose I can guess.

Michael R. Irwin wrote:

This is all history. A done deal.

When Nupedia.com was in the process of flopping due to over regulation and over credentialization Wikipedia.com was set up. Eventually a committment was made to the FDL which started attracting free culture types to assist the large number of P'hds who came over from Nupedia.com.

Some of us started trying to get involved in the business planning at meta to assure we could buy more servers and bandwidth when the load got too high on Jimbo's hobby budget. It was at this time that I was designated a troll by Langer Sanger on his way out of the project.

Jimbo responded by always assuring the mailing that he had plenty of cash and surplus bandwidth for the Wikipedia experiment. He shifted the active domain to wikipedia.org and in secret with perhaps some help from a select few employees or advisers unilaterally setup the nonprofit in Florida.

He announced on the maililng his intent to stack the Board and then he proceeded to do so. It was a fait accompli or done deal and there was only limited whining and complaining on the wikipedia-l mailing list.

If you review the mailing lists since that time you will find occasional nuggets where policy has been handed down ever since by the god-king. There are also occasional pronouncements scattered through the various policy pages.

Since he controls the servers and bandwidth via the Wikimedia Foundation which he controls there is no appeal from a "Jimmy says" flash..

It was and is the contention of the remaining community locally that adequate protection for the community from the god-king is inherent in the ability to fork. Most people dissatisfied with this state of affairs tend to move on, particularly after being labeled and lynched as a "troll", "POV warrier", or other useful tag.

The way I see it, a fork is overdue.

Obviously a fork would have to address the issue of how the newly emerging community intended to govern/manage itself. As God-Kings go Jimbo is not all that bad so there is little to be gained by exchanging him for another.

regards, lazyquasar

---

Textbook-l mailing list Textbook-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l

Kernigh wrote:

Excuse me, can you clarify?

How does [[User:Jimbo Wales]] "retain the power to dictate policy"? Retention requires that you already have the power. When did [[User:Jimbo Wales]] obtain the power to dictate policy "where he deems necessary"?

I understand that someone in the Wikimedia Foundation can dictate policy in exceptional cases where that is required, but I do not understand how the Wikimedia Foundation is organised.

This has been our traditional community policy everywhere in all projects. It is not used much, and certainly has not been used in the case of Wikibooks.

--Jimbo

Cormac Lawler wrote:

There are very clearly How-to books that belong on Wikibooks (and that would very definitely be useful as part of an accredited course).

Absolutely.