On Sat, 3 Nov 2012 20:18:29 +0100, Tomasz W. Kozłowski wrote:

Hi there, a month after the end of the competition, I think it's about time we start slowly evaluating what was wrong and what was good with the organisation of the contest.

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Thanks in advance,

Hi Tomasz and everyone,

I was going to write this later, but I am afraid that we could lose the momentum we just gained, so I write it now. Please tell me if it would be good also to double this at the Commons page, but I really hope that there will be some discussion on the mailing list.

We are now completing the second edition of the contest, and I guess almost all of us were enthusiastic about the next year edition. I think we also all recognize that this is a lot of work, even if many things are ready (as several examples from this year demonstrate). And I think if we want to run the contest (with possible extensions whatever) on a regular basis, we also need a regular organization.

This organization can go in two ways.

First, one can think of creating a real organization, affiliated with WMF, similar to what the Wikiproject Medicine is trying to do now. I personally would not be interested in creating this organization, and I am not sure I would become a member if it has an open membership, but this is an option worthwhile to be discussed.

Another option, which I personally find more attractive, is to create a permanently functioning meta-project, smth like Project Cultural Heritage (scope to be discussed). It could be based on Commons or on Meta (to be discussed, both options have advantages and disadvantages). This must be a meta-project, because it coordinates efforts of many different projects: Different language Wikipedias, Commons (with which the interaction was sometimes not ideal), and potentially different languages in Wikivoyage, may be even Wikidata. Many components of this meta-project already exist on Commons and are supported by Maarten and other enthusiasts.

The added value of this project potentially could be: - Coordination of creation (including translations in different languages) and maintenance of cultural heritage lists; - Coordination of creation of articles; creation of high-quality content; - Creation and maintenance of metrics (including the stuff we have recently been discussing such as number of red links); - Creation of a list of references which are currently scattered over different projects. - During WLM submission periods, general coordination of maintenance.

What I generally find important is that this should be a year round project, not just seasonal preparation to the next WLM edition (though last time we started to prepare already in December if I remember correctly). It will not be only limited to participating countries. For instance, if a country (like UK this year) does not feel it can afford the WLM participation in a particular year, it can still expect to get help from the project and to contribute to help other countries).

Is there a general interest of creating smth like this? If there is some enthusiasm, I could start the initial phase. It is important however that I can not run such a thing alone. I view it as a general cross-project running collaboration, not as a collection of papers which gain moderate attention in September and have zero activity otherwise. A real Wikiproject.

Cheers Yaroslav