I certainly agree on the principle. Practically, some thoughts were
already given by Danny and Sj on this if I remember well, and there was
already some work done in that perspective, when I suggested we create
the hardware requirement page so as to help Mav in his budgeting work.
There is one point on which I do not agree with you though. It has to do
with the projects launching typically.
If we do what you suggest (ie, indicating the board planned road, to be
reviewed/approved by the community), it implies we are having a top down
approach entirely. Besides, it makes it appear we have already taken
decisions in our mind of what to do and what not to do, even though we
may just be thinking of it.
For example, you seem to suggest that 1) the board should indicates its
desire for a wikinews project (as a good idea to pursue... which implies
there already is a good and definitive description of the project to be
based our decision upon), then that 2) the project should be reviewed
and approved by the community.
It seems to me this approach is PRECISELY the one which was recently
rejected and that there was a general desire for the community to be the
motor of road map.
Hence, though I definitly have some opinions myself, I will prefer to
have this road map collectively written, rather than the board giving a
strong steering direction.
In this, we differ very much :-)
Anthere
Erik Moeller a écrit:
Without wanting to overburden the Board of Trustees
which I am sure is
already working at their personal limits, I'd like to suggest that we
create an official Wikimedia roadmap for the next 3 years.
When working on the fundraising pages, I could not find a good, officially
sanctioned "future activities" page on meta or elsewhere (if I missed
something, please let me know). I think that this, together with a well-
written mission statement, would be quite important to educate people
about what Wikimedia is about. This could address many common criticisms
(Wikipedia is not reliable etc.) and hopefully put to rest the
misconception that Wikimedia and Wikipedia are essentially the same
project.
What I am thinking of is a document roughly with three columns:
Quarter Projects Technology Financial
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Q4/2004 - Launch Wikinews [*] - MW: Database schema - Quarterly
- German Wikipedia CD redesign fundraising
with each of these items linking to detailed project pages. This could
then be combined with some prose that outlines our vision for future
projects and needs.
I want us to become better aware of the interdependencies between and
financial needs of our projects, otherwise we might run into some serious
trouble when e.g. we start some well-intended offline edition without a
solid peer review process in place.
There's a problem with this, however, in that the board would have to
decide *now* which projects it thinks will be executed in the future, even
if there has not yet been a vote or a full feasibility study on these
projects. In order to address this problem, I added a "[*]" above, which
would then be resolved to
[*] Tentative. There is consensus among board members that this
[[m:Category:Proposed projects|proposed project]] is a good idea
worth pursuing, but no extensive community review has happened yet.
Hence, I would suggest that the roadmap essentially would reflect the
board's collective bias on the various proposed projects.
What are your thoughts on that? We could try to write this together on
Meta, but the Board would at least have to provide a rough "consensus
paper" to base it on (e.g. which projects the board definitely wants to
do, which technology needs it definitely sees etc.). After some community
work, it would then be handed back to the board for editing and the final
stamp of approval.
Regards,
Erik