Thankyou for your suggestions. I am currently reworking the proposal page at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Rodovid.org/new your comments would be appreciated.
Benjamin Webb
On 24/03/06, Robert Scott Horning robert_horning@netzero.net wrote:
Benjamin Webb wrote:
I have not yet recived any real reply about this project. I would like to hear from someone whether it could actually become a wikimedia project,
and
what would need to happen before it could. Any comments would be
apreciated.
Benjamin Webb (User:Bjwebb on wikipedia, meta, commons, wikibooks,
rodovid
and wikitree)
P.S. It has a meta page at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Rodovid.org
What really needs to happen now is to refine the proposal page and get it into a position that spells out in clear langauge what all of the objectives of the project are, and perhaps even what some initial policies might be.
I would suggest comparing it to the following pages for a similar level of completeness before you get much further:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikiversity/Modified_project_proposal http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikinews&oldid=87446 (to compare to how Wikinews did its proposal back elsewhen)
After this, the proposal pages need to be translated into at least four other major Wikimedia languages like Russian, Spanish, French, Chinese, etc. The full list of suggested langauges is at: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/New_project_policy
Afterward a voting page needs to be set up and some advertisements for voting on the project need to be put on Goings-on for Meta and several Village Pumps on various projects. For the Wikiversity vote, I set up a series of ads to be translated on http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikiversity/Vote
This really made it easy to go to the various Wikimedia websites and drop a note informing people that the vote was taking place. The idea here is that you need to involve as many Wikimedia users in the decision making process as possible, and to remember that not everybody speaks English. Indeed the non-English speaking group of Wikimedia users is so substantial that it really makes no sense to start a new major project without a major effort to get input from these other language groups.
After that, you should have a legitimate answer or some solid input from Wikimedia users in general over if the idea is a good one or not. Due to the nature of this project, widespread input is especially recommended. Mind you, all of the above steps are outlined in the official New Project Policy, as approved by the Wikimedia Foundation board. The examples I cite are from successful projects that at least have the attention of the board and very substantial community support.
If you want some assitance on this, feel free to e-mail me privately or hit my user talk page on Wikibooks (the best way to get ahold of me). Most members of the special projects committee (of which I'm not a part) would also be willing to help you out as well in terms of general assistance or to answer questions about this process.
-- Robert Scott Horning
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