On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 5:26 PM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
My point is that without specific focus, these other sites languish and slowly die. A software package that was built for an encyclopedia can't work for a dictionary. It doesn't work for a dictionary. It also can't and doesn't work for a number of other concepts.
Of course, up to this point we all agree. That said, far from a myopic focus on English Wikipedia, strategies to support specialized needs and exploration of new ideas have long been very much a high priority for WMF. It's an issue that's very clearly articulated in the "Encourage Innovation" section of the strategic plan:
[begin quote] Support the infrastructure of networked innovation and research. - Develop clear documentation and APIs so that developers can create applications that work easily with our platforms. - Ensure access to computing resources and data for interested researchers and developers, including downloadable copies of all public data. - Continually improve social and technical systems for volunteer development of core software, extensions, gadgets and other technical improvements.
Promote the adoption of great ideas. - Develop clear processes for code review, acceptance and deployment so that volunteer development does not linger in limbo. - Organize meetings and events bringing together developers and researchers who are focused on Wikimedia-related projects with experienced Wikimedia volunteers and staff. - Showcase and recognize the greatest innovations of the Wikimedia movement, and create community spaces dedicated to the exploration of new ideas. [end quote]
http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Movement_Strategic_Plan_Summary...
That strategy is very much reflected in our actions and our budgeting, as is evident from consulting recent activity reports.
One can legitimately criticize that this helps achieve incremental improvements across the board, but leaves a gap of "large, focused investment to meet specialized needs" (e.g. build new software to support a wiki-based dictionary). But it doesn't necessarily have to do so.
IMO, the question that's worth asking is: What's the constraint that's keeping more people from launching successful initiatives under the Wikimedia umbrella? There are clearly both technical and social constraints. One technical constraint is the fact that taking an initiative from scratch to a successful launch requires considerable WMF support along the way. How can we reduce the need for WMF organizational support?
The Wikimedia Labs project ( http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Labs ) is designed to push that boundary. In the "Test Dev Labs" environment, the goal is to make it possible to test and develop software under conditions that are very close to the WMF production environment. This means that, provided you're willing to invest sufficient resources, you should be able to get a project much closer to "WMF readiness" than you are today with far less WMF help. Indeed, it is designed to not become an on-ramp for new volunteers not just in development, but also site operations.
That's of course a risky project and it may not live up to our expectations. But it's IMO a smarter bet to make than just picking (with an unavoidable element of arbitrariness) one of the many specialized areas in which we currently aren't succeeding and throwing $ and developers at it. Because it could enable us to approach far more organizations and individuals to invest time and money in complex free knowledge problems without having to pass through the WMF bottleneck.
There are literally thousands of mission-driven organizations that would love to find ways to help solve problems in the free knowledge spaces we're occupying. Yet, even Wikimedia's own chapter organizations are still only a relatively small part of the ecosystem of technical innovation (which is no discredit to the many things they have done, including some great technical work).
Having organizations take on challenges either because they are inherently suited to do so, or simply because they have the organizational bandwidth, seems like a fairly rational path to increase our ability to get things done. If that's the world we want to live in, it also seems entirely rational to me that WMF should focus on general high impact improvements while continually investing a considerable amount of its capacity in helping more people to build great things.
In addition to technical support systems, forks can be a very good and healthy part of that development (to break out of social constraints), as can be the development of new organizations. A Wikinews Foundation, or a Wiki Journalism Foundation, or some other such construct may make a lot of sense in the long run, specifically when it comes to the problem of citizen journalism.