Anthony DiPierro wrote:
As far as the people who donated to Wikimedia hoping
that it would be
used only for Wikipedia, I think that is both
shortsighted on your part
with regards to the donors as well as something the donors should be in
general better informed about when they give money to the Foundation.
You misquoted me. I never said donations should only be used for Wikipedia.
But instead of repeating myself I'll be precise: "The specific purpose for
which [Wikimedia] is organized is: to create and freely distribute freely
licensed encyclopedias, textbooks, reference works, and other literary,
scientific, and educational information in all languages of the world."
That's straight from the amended articles of incorporation. To spend any
significant portion of donations on anything else is at best unethical.
I don't see a Wikiversity as going beyond the quoted mandate. Teaching
is a way of distributing information.. Trying to impute restrictions
into donors' minds is pointless. How many donors have actually stated
such restrictions?
Most of what
Wikiversity is going to be doing on the website anyway is
writing curriculum standards, course syllibi, instructional examples,
and testing materials. How is that any different from writing books or
encyclopedia articles. Besides, all of these tasks have been happening
on Wikibooks anyway. The only real debate is if these tasks should
happen as a seperate project or if it is something that belongs within
Wikibooks.
I already said I have no problem as long as the purpose of Wikiversity is
limited to creating and distributing learning materials, and doesn't include
actually using those materials to teach.
If that were all it did it would be pointless to have the project. My
own resistance is based in part on on the concern that it might be
limited to the kind of sterile role that you imagine.
In any case, I think the project should stay within
Wikibooks.
There is certainly no urgency for moving it out of Wikibooks
Ec