Pharos, I think that many such 'separate projects' do come into being on parent sites, sometimes with initial friction (with people saying that the new entries do not belong). I agree with your point that active merging as well as branching of projects is good - a sign of evolution and homeostasis.
Meta is a good place to discuss most things, but I don't know that meta is the /best/ place to propose something until one has a clear enough idea and enough effort being put into a fledgling project for it to be viable as something new, unless all existing projects disown the type of material in question.
SJ
On Wed, May 14, 2008 at 11:29 PM, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, May 14, 2008 at 5:25 PM, Jesse Plamondon-Willard pathoschild@gmail.com wrote:
Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote:
Isn't that a sign of stagnation? [...] I'm personally of the opinion that some of our existing projects might benefit by being merged, and I feel this should be an issue for a community structure to consider as well.
Isn't that contradictory? You feel that creating few new projects (low growth) is a sign of stagnation, which the community assembly could correct by un-creating a few (negative growth)?
"Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)"
The growth that we need as a vibrant Wikimedia is the addition of new types of reference works to our collections. This is the growth that is stagnating.
Now, whether a proposal is eventually implemented as a new wiki, or as a defined "subproject" under an existing wiki (like Wikijunior on Wikibooks or Wikisaurus on Wiktionary), is a different issue. It should, in my opinion, ultimately be a pragmatic decision based on what can form a viable separate wiki. And a few of our existing projects perhaps do not have this type of independent viability.
Wikijunior and Wikisaurus, I believe, started as proposals on Meta too. And I believe Meta is the right place for these types of proposals, whether they are eventually implemented as new wikis, or as defined "subprojects" under existing wikis. And for discussion of the possible merging of existing wikis too. Not necessarily in a "community assembly", but certainly in some more developed community structure than we have now.
Thanks, Pharos
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