Jimmy Wales wrote:
Michael R. Irwin wrote:
I have been eagerly awaiting Wikiversity for about three years now as it was an obvious synergistic project. I would be curious as to what the real holdup is with it. Are we afraid of hardware or bandwidth limitations? Are a bunch of self motivated learners to potentially radical and threatening to the status quo?
Perhaps the irony is that the board has deliberately chosen not to engage in "top down management" and to let this community "manage itself". This has a lot to recommend it, because the wikiversity proposal is a lot stronger for it.
But if you are really upset that this community-driven process takes so long, then instead of clamoring for the board to not micromanage, you should perhaps ask us to do so. I am quite sure that we could get Wikiversity approved and up and running in 2-3 weeks time, if we chose to run roughshod over the community to do it.
This is actually a very typical scenario, of course.
Ever consider activating the URLs which we ... sorry God King, you control via the Foundation?
The initial development and prototyping could proceed effectively we could be attracting participation and the Board could make it clear that if the Wikimedia Foundation, or God King, or Community whoever is really the driving force and final say around the Wikimedia organization and community decided against it .... then the database would be backed up and burned on CD or posted for download for any and all who wish to pursue the concept elsewhere. Then a nice clean deactivation and delete of the prototype space could occur.
I am quite sure given the proven talent of our developments and some of your employee something like this is possible on servers the Wikimeda Board of Developers controls.
If it is not possible I would be interested in any perspectives from the Board or the employees or the developers regarding why not. It will be helpful to any future attempts to initialize an equivalent project elsewhere on other assets.
A calender year is not a trivial asset to retirees or people nearing retirement in the U.S. with the kind of expertise we need to succeed with Wikiversity. The average U.S. male kick offs within a few years of retirement. It would be nice if we could keep them around for a few years working for us creating free knowledge content that could be delivered to the rest of the world.
Further, a calender year is not trivial to a starving entrepreneur anywhere on this planet that just needed some information to succeed and feed his family or a sufficient grounding in some relevant area of knowledge or information to get gainful employment in a sweatshop paying something instead of nothing.
As the previously designated troll and not on the current committee appointed by the Board of Directors of the Wikimedia Foundation I hearby request that you direct Brion to active the wiki and URL at the domain wikiversity.org currently controlled by the Wikimedia Foundation at his earliest efficient time on a time and material available no impact to the rest of the operation basis with the clear understanding that if the project is declined for support by the Wikimedia Foundation it will be backed up, posted for download in whatever appropriate compressed format is effective and available, and deleted from Wikimeda Foundation servers.
There. You have a request for action from the bottom. An easy demonstration of bottom up methods in our peer based community and a full CYA for later if the surging naysayers manage to convince the community at large and/or the responsible controlling board members that Wikiversity must not be operated by the Wikimedia Foundation and/or community for whatever prevailing reasons or conclusion that dominate that decision making process.
Finally. We are on parallel top down design, bottom up optimization, experimentation, and initiative destined to meet in the middle under the final say of the Board and/or prevailing factions of the community at large.
Have a nice day.
regards, lazyquaser