With the launch of the WikiData effort, I am reminded that we should return to our early willingness to experiment with new project ideas. This means both starting new types of projects (like commons, like wikidata!) and closing / archiving / spinning off projects (like the sep11 wiki).
Two things I would love to see in the near future: - a fixed new-project process, and at least one proposal evaluated through it. Starting to work through the backlog of new project ideas/requests that have existing active projects elsewhere - a global list of areas needing free knowledge, and how far we are as a society towards reaching that goal
SJ
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Samuel Klein sj@wikimedia.org Date: Mon, Jul 11, 2011 at 2:01 AM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] They do make or break reputations To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
I would love to see the new project process on Meta come back online. (much of this email is posted to [[m:talk:new project proposals]])
I could use some help in making this happen - we need to start an incubator process for ideas with support, and a separate process for proposing existing projects that have been incubated elsewhere for support or hosting. The meta page for each proposed project should track its progress, whether offsite or on the incubator... a project infobox should be designed... an interested group (if less formal than langcom) should go through and review the backlog of proposals and suggest the necessary next step for each.
On Sun, Jul 10, 2011 at 11:48 PM, Alec Conroy alecmconroy@gmail.com wrote:
You can always make Wikinfo a sister project.
A space to hold POV debates would be an interesting intermediate ground between no-restraint edit wars and topic bans, for those in heated argument. Is Wikinfo designed for this? I was thinking of something more like 'Wikireason'. There have been various proposals for an 'argument wiki' over the years, but I've never seen a working implementation.
I have actually been independently trying to think of other wikis that should be "sister projects". Some are really obvious and non-controversial--
SNPedia, for example, an encyclopedia of single nucleotide polymorphisms and related studies
Yes. Link: http://www.snpedia.com/index.php/SNPedia
Genealogy: WeRelate and Rodovid. Both remarkable and lovely projects. Combinable, if all parties could be brought together. Both could use support; I've touched on the possibility of becoming WMF projects with each, and they are willing to discuss it. The result would be by far the largest free collection of genealogy information, with support from one of the major libraries studyig and archiving related data in the US
Children's encyclopedia: WikiKids, Vikidia, Grundschulwiki, Wikimini. These projects could be coordinated better to share ideas and lessons, and could use more visibility. Some people active in these projects are already Wikimedians.
Dictionaries: OmegaWiki. This multilingual dictionary could help revamp our toolchain for Wiktionary, which remains a bit broken.
Interface translation: TranslateWiki. iirc it does not want to be a WMF project per se, but could use more explicit support than we have given so far.
Citations and bibliography: AcaWiki (and the budding WikiScholar).
Wikified maps: Wikimapia. currently profitable and popular; probably fine on their own. However they use a non-free map stack and use an NC license; finding a way to help that project migrate to a free stack and license [now that there is a free orthorectified aerial map available http://blog.stevecoast.com/im-working-at-microsoft-and-were-donating-ima] would be of benefit to the whole world.
Other projects for which there is a supply of raw materials available from content donors (which we cannot currently accept): * Annotated source materials and their translations: Part of Wikisource++ ? * Translation memory: Part of Translatewiki++ ? * Public datasets: Wikidata * Music scores: Wikimusic
We're at the point where the lack of diversity of our English language project 'styles' may be a major factor dissuading new users from participation.
It is certainly one of the factors.
Sam.
Samuel Klein, 03/04/2012 06:40:
- a global list of areas needing free knowledge, and how far we are
as a society towards reaching that goal
We had started a stub table about this: https://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_things_that_need_to_be_free
Nemo
On 3 April 2012 07:47, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:
We had started a stub table about this: https://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_things_that_need_to_be_free
This is brilliant! I've been after something like this for a while.
- d.
On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 3:38 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 3 April 2012 07:47, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:
We had started a stub table about this: https://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_things_that_need_to_be_free
This is brilliant! I've been after something like this for a while.
Thanks for the reminder, Nemo. I was looking for this on Meta, but forgot to check the stratwiki. Embarrassing, since apparently I started the page... :) Liam: another reason to consider merging meta wikis.
Ziko:
what would a WMF evaluation of Wikinews or Wikispecies say? Should we shut down such a project... cease to mention it on Wikipedia main pages... or invest money in promoting it?
Good questions, subtle answers. Those are not the only options; we might help them merge with a similar project. For instance, wikieducator and wikiversity have almost identical missions, and might benefit from being merged; the question of 'who hosts the site' is relatively minor compared to the loss of splitting energy and focus across two wikis.
Liam (paraphrased):
- "project review" : identify support each project expects from the WMF.
- "easy improvements with high value". Start with Wiktionary
- rename Commons to "WikiCommons"? merge WikiSpecies w/ WikiData?
- merge Outreach, Strategy and MetaWiki --> wikimedia.org
- lower barriers b/t wikis: global userpages, talk, watchlists
This whole class of brainstorming is important; making it less of a pain to travel between projects is good for all of them.
Yaroslav:
may be we could use the experience of langcom and appoint ten individuals who would recommend new proposals to the Board.
That's not a bad idea.
SJ
On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 4:22 PM, Samuel Klein sjklein@hcs.harvard.edu wrote:
On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 3:38 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 3 April 2012 07:47, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:
We had started a stub table about this: https://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_things_that_need_to_be_free
This is brilliant! I've been after something like this for a while.
Thanks for the reminder, Nemo. I was looking for this on Meta, but forgot to check the stratwiki. Embarrassing, since apparently I started the page... :) Liam: another reason to consider merging meta wikis.
Ziko:
what would a WMF evaluation of Wikinews or Wikispecies say? Should we shut down such a project... cease to mention it on Wikipedia main pages... or invest money in promoting it?
Good questions, subtle answers. Those are not the only options; we might help them merge with a similar project. For instance, wikieducator and wikiversity have almost identical missions, and might benefit from being merged; the question of 'who hosts the site' is relatively minor compared to the loss of splitting energy and focus across two wikis.
Liam (paraphrased):
- "project review" : identify support each project expects from the WMF.
- "easy improvements with high value". Start with Wiktionary
- rename Commons to "WikiCommons"? merge WikiSpecies w/ WikiData?
- merge Outreach, Strategy and MetaWiki --> wikimedia.org
- lower barriers b/t wikis: global userpages, talk, watchlists
This whole class of brainstorming is important; making it less of a pain to travel between projects is good for all of them.
Yaroslav:
may be we could use the experience of langcom and appoint ten individuals who would recommend new proposals to the Board.
That's not a bad idea.
SJ
Indeed, perhaps a 'Sister Projects Committee' could start looking into some of Liam's type of questions.
(Of course, Wikipedia is a "sister project" too!)
Thanks, Richard (User:Pharos)
I totally second SJ's poke for more new projects! Although our flagship project is highly successful, it would be good if we try to keep creating new communities. I have been sad for quite a while now that we don't create new projects any more. It would be great to see one new project every year :)
Best, Lodewijk
No dia 4 de Abril de 2012 05:53, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.comescreveu:
On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 4:22 PM, Samuel Klein sjklein@hcs.harvard.edu wrote:
On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 3:38 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 3 April 2012 07:47, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:
We had started a stub table about this:
https://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_things_that_need_to_be_free
This is brilliant! I've been after something like this for a while.
Thanks for the reminder, Nemo. I was looking for this on Meta, but forgot to check the stratwiki. Embarrassing, since apparently I started the page... :) Liam: another reason to consider merging meta wikis.
Ziko:
what would a WMF evaluation of Wikinews or Wikispecies say? Should we
shut down such
a project... cease to mention it on Wikipedia main pages... or invest
money in promoting it?
Good questions, subtle answers. Those are not the only options; we might help them merge with a similar project. For instance, wikieducator and wikiversity have almost identical missions, and might benefit from being merged; the question of 'who hosts the site' is relatively minor compared to the loss of splitting energy and focus across two wikis.
Liam (paraphrased):
- "project review" : identify support each project expects from the WMF.
- "easy improvements with high value". Start with Wiktionary
- rename Commons to "WikiCommons"? merge WikiSpecies w/ WikiData?
- merge Outreach, Strategy and MetaWiki --> wikimedia.org
- lower barriers b/t wikis: global userpages, talk, watchlists
This whole class of brainstorming is important; making it less of a pain to travel between projects is good for all of them.
Yaroslav:
may be we could use the experience of langcom and appoint ten
individuals
who would recommend new proposals to the Board.
That's not a bad idea.
SJ
Indeed, perhaps a 'Sister Projects Committee' could start looking into some of Liam's type of questions.
(Of course, Wikipedia is a "sister project" too!)
Thanks, Richard (User:Pharos)
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 10:28 AM, Lodewijk lodewijk@effeietsanders.org wrote:
I totally second SJ's poke for more new projects! Although our flagship project is highly successful, it would be good if we try to keep creating new communities. I have been sad for quite a while now that we don't create new projects any more. It would be great to see one new project every year :)
I had suggested earlier that we might even run this as an annual thing, with a Wikimania-style bidding process for the new sister projects.
Thanks, Richard (User:Pharos)
No dia 4 de Abril de 2012 05:53, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.comescreveu:
On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 4:22 PM, Samuel Klein sjklein@hcs.harvard.edu wrote:
On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 3:38 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 3 April 2012 07:47, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:
We had started a stub table about this:
https://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_things_that_need_to_be_free
This is brilliant! I've been after something like this for a while.
Thanks for the reminder, Nemo. I was looking for this on Meta, but forgot to check the stratwiki. Embarrassing, since apparently I started the page... :) Liam: another reason to consider merging meta wikis.
Ziko:
what would a WMF evaluation of Wikinews or Wikispecies say? Should we
shut down such
a project... cease to mention it on Wikipedia main pages... or invest
money in promoting it?
Good questions, subtle answers. Those are not the only options; we might help them merge with a similar project. For instance, wikieducator and wikiversity have almost identical missions, and might benefit from being merged; the question of 'who hosts the site' is relatively minor compared to the loss of splitting energy and focus across two wikis.
Liam (paraphrased):
- "project review" : identify support each project expects from the WMF.
- "easy improvements with high value". Start with Wiktionary
- rename Commons to "WikiCommons"? merge WikiSpecies w/ WikiData?
- merge Outreach, Strategy and MetaWiki --> wikimedia.org
- lower barriers b/t wikis: global userpages, talk, watchlists
This whole class of brainstorming is important; making it less of a pain to travel between projects is good for all of them.
Yaroslav:
may be we could use the experience of langcom and appoint ten
individuals
who would recommend new proposals to the Board.
That's not a bad idea.
SJ
Indeed, perhaps a 'Sister Projects Committee' could start looking into some of Liam's type of questions.
(Of course, Wikipedia is a "sister project" too!)
Thanks, Richard (User:Pharos)
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Am 3. April 2012 22:22 schrieb Samuel Klein sjklein@hcs.harvard.edu:
Ziko:
what would a WMF evaluation of Wikinews or Wikispecies say? Should we shut down such a project... cease to mention it on Wikipedia main pages... or invest money in promoting it?
Good questions, subtle answers. Those are not the only options; we might help them merge with a similar project. For instance, wikieducator and wikiversity have almost identical missions, and might benefit from being merged; the question of 'who hosts the site' is relatively minor compared to the loss of splitting energy and focus across two wikis.
I would like to add another option: Who not merge all projects into Wikipedia proper? The lack in participation in the sister projects is largely due to the fact that hardly anyone knows about them. Wikipedia is the only Wikimedia brand people know of. There is nothing you can do about it. If the sister projects were living in their own namespaces within Wikipedia this would be different. We would have, say, a Wikipedia dictionary. They would become part of Wikipedia and, hence, partaking in Wikipedia's popularity. Putting money in sister projects just means wasting funds. The future lies in integrating them into Wikipedia. Five years of experience is enough to tell.
Regards, Jürgen.
Hi everyone, I'm "new" on the list and this is my fist email, but I've been reading for a while(I'm from es.wiki). I support what Jürgen said, Most of the Wikimedia projects are not very popular (with the exception of Wikipedia and maybe commons). I talk about what I've read and listened to people totally ignorant about what the wiki is, If there could be a way we could incorporate other projects to wikipedia it would be perfect.
You've never heard in the news things about Wikiquote or Wikiversity, it's always about Wikipedia. It would seem that the best thing we could do to help improve the participation on those projects would be to merge them in to the most popular project: Wikipedia
On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 7:04 PM, Jürgen Fenn schneeschmelze@googlemail.comwrote:
Am 3. April 2012 22:22 schrieb Samuel Klein sjklein@hcs.harvard.edu:
Ziko:
what would a WMF evaluation of Wikinews or Wikispecies say? Should we
shut down such
a project... cease to mention it on Wikipedia main pages... or invest
money in promoting it?
Good questions, subtle answers. Those are not the only options; we might help them merge with a similar project. For instance, wikieducator and wikiversity have almost identical missions, and might benefit from being merged; the question of 'who hosts the site' is relatively minor compared to the loss of splitting energy and focus across two wikis.
I would like to add another option: Who not merge all projects into Wikipedia proper? The lack in participation in the sister projects is largely due to the fact that hardly anyone knows about them. Wikipedia is the only Wikimedia brand people know of. There is nothing you can do about it. If the sister projects were living in their own namespaces within Wikipedia this would be different. We would have, say, a Wikipedia dictionary. They would become part of Wikipedia and, hence, partaking in Wikipedia's popularity. Putting money in sister projects just means wasting funds. The future lies in integrating them into Wikipedia. Five years of experience is enough to tell.
Regards, Jürgen.
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
The policies of each project are different for a very good reason.
e.g. If English Wikiquote was merged into English Wikipedia, the vast majority of the quote pages would be deleted very quickly, for good or ill. I know I would be the first to get out the sickle. :P
On Thu, Apr 5, 2012 at 2:22 PM, Carlos Felipe Antonorsi carfelant@gmail.com wrote:
Hi everyone, I'm "new" on the list and this is my fist email, but I've been reading for a while(I'm from es.wiki). I support what Jürgen said, Most of the Wikimedia projects are not very popular (with the exception of Wikipedia and maybe commons). I talk about what I've read and listened to people totally ignorant about what the wiki is, If there could be a way we could incorporate other projects to wikipedia it would be perfect.
You've never heard in the news things about Wikiquote or Wikiversity, it's always about Wikipedia. It would seem that the best thing we could do to help improve the participation on those projects would be to merge them in to the most popular project: Wikipedia
On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 7:04 PM, Jürgen Fenn schneeschmelze@googlemail.comwrote:
Am 3. April 2012 22:22 schrieb Samuel Klein sjklein@hcs.harvard.edu:
Ziko:
what would a WMF evaluation of Wikinews or Wikispecies say? Should we
shut down such
a project... cease to mention it on Wikipedia main pages... or invest
money in promoting it?
Good questions, subtle answers. Those are not the only options; we might help them merge with a similar project. For instance, wikieducator and wikiversity have almost identical missions, and might benefit from being merged; the question of 'who hosts the site' is relatively minor compared to the loss of splitting energy and focus across two wikis.
I would like to add another option: Who not merge all projects into Wikipedia proper? The lack in participation in the sister projects is largely due to the fact that hardly anyone knows about them. Wikipedia is the only Wikimedia brand people know of. There is nothing you can do about it. If the sister projects were living in their own namespaces within Wikipedia this would be different. We would have, say, a Wikipedia dictionary. They would become part of Wikipedia and, hence, partaking in Wikipedia's popularity. Putting money in sister projects just means wasting funds. The future lies in integrating them into Wikipedia. Five years of experience is enough to tell.
Regards, Jürgen.
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-- -cfa
Carlos Felipe Antonorsi G. 0416-6852535 @antonorsi _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
In some respects, that change would be quite good. My experience on Wikiquote has been unfavorable, to put it mildly, where the en.wiki concept of BLP is non-existent.
Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2012 14:42:41 +1000 From: jayvdb@gmail.com To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] New Project Process
The policies of each project are different for a very good reason.
e.g. If English Wikiquote was merged into English Wikipedia, the vast majority of the quote pages would be deleted very quickly, for good or ill. I know I would be the first to get out the sickle. :P
On Thu, Apr 5, 2012 at 2:22 PM, Carlos Felipe Antonorsi
-- John Vandenberg
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Indeed, I would expect for the 'Sister Projects Committee' to have both the options of project fission and project fusion within its toolbag.
Thanks, Richard (User:Pharos)
On Fri, Apr 6, 2012 at 11:24 AM, Tarc Meridian tarc@hotmail.com wrote:
In some respects, that change would be quite good. My experience on Wikiquote has been unfavorable, to put it mildly, where the en.wiki concept of BLP is non-existent.
Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2012 14:42:41 +1000 From: jayvdb@gmail.com To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] New Project Process
The policies of each project are different for a very good reason.
e.g. If English Wikiquote was merged into English Wikipedia, the vast majority of the quote pages would be deleted very quickly, for good or ill. I know I would be the first to get out the sickle. :P
On Thu, Apr 5, 2012 at 2:22 PM, Carlos Felipe Antonorsi
-- John Vandenberg
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
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There have been some good suggestions in this thread! I've summarized some of them on meta here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Sister_Projects_Committee
Please help improve that page, and indicate if you would be interested in this work.
SJ
On Sat, Apr 7, 2012 at 8:25 AM, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote:
Indeed, I would expect for the 'Sister Projects Committee' to have both the options of project fission and project fusion within its toolbag.
Thanks, Richard (User:Pharos)
On Fri, Apr 6, 2012 at 11:24 AM, Tarc Meridian tarc@hotmail.com wrote:
In some respects, that change would be quite good. My experience on Wikiquote has been unfavorable, to put it mildly, where the en.wiki concept of BLP is non-existent.
Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2012 14:42:41 +1000 From: jayvdb@gmail.com To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] New Project Process
The policies of each project are different for a very good reason.
e.g. If English Wikiquote was merged into English Wikipedia, the vast majority of the quote pages would be deleted very quickly, for good or ill. I know I would be the first to get out the sickle. :P
On Thu, Apr 5, 2012 at 2:22 PM, Carlos Felipe Antonorsi
-- John Vandenberg
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On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 8:34 PM, Jürgen Fenn schneeschmelze@googlemail.com wrote:
Am 3. April 2012 22:22 schrieb Samuel Klein sjklein@hcs.harvard.edu:
I would like to add another option: Who not merge all projects into Wikipedia proper? The lack in participation in the sister projects is largely due to the fact that hardly anyone knows about them. Wikipedia is the only Wikimedia brand people know of.
That is because there has been no serious attempt to promote/visibilize the other brands.
I think all the sister projects should be displayed at the top of the site like the Google products in their new black bar.
Also, the Wikimedia brand / logo should not be hidden at the bottom of the footer in every page!
I made some suggestions about this some time ago: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2010-December/063014.html
If the sister projects were living in their own namespaces within Wikipedia this would be different.
Maybe... or maybe they will be namespaces that hardly anyone knows about because no one linked them in visible places.
And the "In the news" section of the Main Page of Wikipedia should be a Wikinews one.
Hi,
Le 5 avril 2012 05:04, Jürgen Fenn schneeschmelze@googlemail.com a écrit :
Am 3. April 2012 22:22 schrieb Samuel Klein sjklein@hcs.harvard.edu:
Ziko:
what would a WMF evaluation of Wikinews or Wikispecies say? Should we shut down such a project... cease to mention it on Wikipedia main pages... or invest money in promoting it?
Good questions, subtle answers. Those are not the only options; we might help them merge with a similar project. For instance, wikieducator and wikiversity have almost identical missions, and might benefit from being merged; the question of 'who hosts the site' is relatively minor compared to the loss of splitting energy and focus across two wikis.
I would like to add another option: Who not merge all projects into Wikipedia proper? The lack in participation in the sister projects is largely due to the fact that hardly anyone knows about them. Wikipedia is the only Wikimedia brand people know of. There is nothing you can do about it. If the sister projects were living in their own namespaces within Wikipedia this would be different. We would have, say, a Wikipedia dictionary. They would become part of Wikipedia and, hence, partaking in Wikipedia's popularity. Putting money in sister projects just means wasting funds. The future lies in integrating them into Wikipedia. Five years of experience is enough to tell.
I beg to disagree on all this. Yes, people do not know about the sister projects, but you can do a lot about that. First, start by promoting them, instead of only promoting Wikipedia. There are very good reasons why these projects are separate: different scopes, different rules, etc. Merging them at this point would be the worst idea: they would sink in the sea of controversy.
No, the future does not lie in making one for binding them all in the darkness. ;o) The future lies in diversity. Five years of indifference do not prove anything.
Regards, Jürgen.
Regards, Yann
On Tue, 03 Apr 2012 08:47:45 +0200, Federico Leva (Nemo) wrote:
Samuel Klein, 03/04/2012 06:40:
- a global list of areas needing free knowledge, and how far we
are as a society towards reaching that goal
We had started a stub table about this:
https://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_things_that_need_to_be_free
Nemo
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Thanks, exactly what I mentioned in the previous message.
Cheers Yaroslav
On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 2:47 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:
Samuel Klein, 03/04/2012 06:40:
- a global list of areas needing free knowledge, and how far we are as a society towards reaching that goal
We had started a stub table about this: https://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_things_that_need_to_be_free
The several topical subcategories of 'Proposed projects' that I've played with also give a good idea of the variety of areas of free knowledge (list-focused, citation-focused, DIY-focused, etc) that have been proposed on meta:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Proposed_projects
Thanks, Richard (User:Pharos)
Hello,
Interesting. Please allow me to second that with the proposal to reconsider existing projects. For example, what would a WMF evaluation of Wikinews or Wikispecies say? Should we shut down such a project, or at least cease to mention it on Wikipedia main pages? Or invest money in promoting it?
Kind regards Ziko
2012/4/3 Samuel Klein sj@wikimedia.org:
With the launch of the WikiData effort, I am reminded that we should return to our early willingness to experiment with new project ideas. This means both starting new types of projects (like commons, like wikidata!) and closing / archiving / spinning off projects (like the sep11 wiki).
Two things I would love to see in the near future: - a fixed new-project process, and at least one proposal evaluated through it. Starting to work through the backlog of new project ideas/requests that have existing active projects elsewhere - a global list of areas needing free knowledge, and how far we are as a society towards reaching that goal
SJ
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Samuel Klein sj@wikimedia.org Date: Mon, Jul 11, 2011 at 2:01 AM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] They do make or break reputations To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
I would love to see the new project process on Meta come back online. (much of this email is posted to [[m:talk:new project proposals]])
I could use some help in making this happen - we need to start an incubator process for ideas with support, and a separate process for proposing existing projects that have been incubated elsewhere for support or hosting. The meta page for each proposed project should track its progress, whether offsite or on the incubator... a project infobox should be designed... an interested group (if less formal than langcom) should go through and review the backlog of proposals and suggest the necessary next step for each.
On Sun, Jul 10, 2011 at 11:48 PM, Alec Conroy alecmconroy@gmail.com wrote:
You can always make Wikinfo a sister project.
A space to hold POV debates would be an interesting intermediate ground between no-restraint edit wars and topic bans, for those in heated argument. Is Wikinfo designed for this? I was thinking of something more like 'Wikireason'. There have been various proposals for an 'argument wiki' over the years, but I've never seen a working implementation.
I have actually been independently trying to think of other wikis that should be "sister projects". Some are really obvious and non-controversial--
SNPedia, for example, an encyclopedia of single nucleotide polymorphisms and related studies
Yes. Link: http://www.snpedia.com/index.php/SNPedia
Genealogy: WeRelate and Rodovid. Both remarkable and lovely projects. Combinable, if all parties could be brought together. Both could use support; I've touched on the possibility of becoming WMF projects with each, and they are willing to discuss it. The result would be by far the largest free collection of genealogy information, with support from one of the major libraries studyig and archiving related data in the US
Children's encyclopedia: WikiKids, Vikidia, Grundschulwiki, Wikimini. These projects could be coordinated better to share ideas and lessons, and could use more visibility. Some people active in these projects are already Wikimedians.
Dictionaries: OmegaWiki. This multilingual dictionary could help revamp our toolchain for Wiktionary, which remains a bit broken.
Interface translation: TranslateWiki. iirc it does not want to be a WMF project per se, but could use more explicit support than we have given so far.
Citations and bibliography: AcaWiki (and the budding WikiScholar).
Wikified maps: Wikimapia. currently profitable and popular; probably fine on their own. However they use a non-free map stack and use an NC license; finding a way to help that project migrate to a free stack and license [now that there is a free orthorectified aerial map available http://blog.stevecoast.com/im-working-at-microsoft-and-were-donating-ima] would be of benefit to the whole world.
Other projects for which there is a supply of raw materials available from content donors (which we cannot currently accept):
- Annotated source materials and their translations: Part of Wikisource++ ?
- Translation memory: Part of Translatewiki++ ?
- Public datasets: Wikidata
- Music scores: Wikimusic
We're at the point where the lack of diversity of our English language project 'styles' may be a major factor dissuading new users from participation.
It is certainly one of the factors.
Sam.
-- Samuel Klein identi.ca:sj w:user:sj +1 617 529 4266
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On 3 April 2012 06:50, Ziko van Dijk vandijk@wmnederland.nl wrote:
Hello,
Interesting. Please allow me to second that with the proposal to reconsider existing projects. For example, what would a WMF evaluation of Wikinews or Wikispecies say? Should we shut down such a project, or at least cease to mention it on Wikipedia main pages? Or invest money in promoting it?
Kind regards Ziko
Interesting examples Ziko - and allow me to go a bit further... - I'd love to see some kind of "project review" to identify what the communities of all the different sister-projects and language editions believe to be the minimum standards of technical support that they expect from the WMF. We all often hear that everything-other-than-en.WP-is-ignored but if we had some published/agreed expectations that would make it much easier to see what was needed. - Similar to Erik Moeller's presentation at Wikimania 2010 (starting slide 17) I'd like to see some specific focus put on "easy improvements with high value". In my mind Wiktionary seems to be the logical place where a little bit of attention could have massive impacts on the project. https://wikimania2010.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Beyondencyclopedi... - I've often wondered if there has been any formal discussion about the name "Wikimedia Commons" and whether it should be renamed "WikiCommons" for consistency with the rest of the projects. This is especially so now that it is a public-facing project not merely the "service project" it was originally designed to be. - Perhaps WikiSpieces should be merged into WikiData (once it's built) since taxonomic information is most definitely a type of structured data. - Also, could we look at merging the OutreachWiki, the StrategyWiki and MetaWiki? Maybe they could all live at the (currently extremely under-utilised) domain of http://www.wikimedia.org/ - Finally, and more generally, could we make an assessment of the kind of software changes that could be made to make connecting between different wikis easier - both for readers and for editors. Now we have SingleUserLogin, global userpages and watchlists would seem an obvious step to making it easier for editors to work across projects.
Just some very rough ideas!
-Liam
- a global list of areas needing free knowledge, and how far we are
as a society towards reaching that goal
SJ
Erik initiated the creation of such list at some point (I believe it was 2010 and strategy wiki), I should be able to find it.
For the mechanism of creation new projects, may be we could use the experience of langcom and appoint ten individuals who would recommend new proposals to the Board.
Cheers Yaroslav
Hoi, The WikiData project is at first very much technical. Software is developed and as the software gains a certain level of maturity, a community will start to grow. This community will slowly but surely become integrated with other Wikimedia projects.
At this stage all eyes are on Wikipedia but Commons is another contender; the current data on the pages is highly structured and this makes it an obvious target. The quotes of Wikiquote can also be structured and made into structured data. The information in Wiktionary can also be structured, this has been realised to a really large extend in OmegaWiki.
The most important notion as far as I am concerned is that WikiData will to a large extend compete with the WikiText and content will migrate to WikiData when it is appreciated what added value can be had as a result.
When you consider new projects for the Wikimedia Foundation, when you even consider the existing projects, the key consideration is what is it that you want to achieve in that project and how this can be best realised. There are both technical, organisational and community issues. When you are willing to tackle these issues, when the Wikimedia Foundation is to tackle these issues it means that we will have to consider more than just business as usual. It means that tools that support existing practices like the recording of pronounced text can be either better documented maybe even integrated. This is to prevent the recurring development of new tools with the same purpose because older tools are unknown or not maintained.
In a nutshell; because of Wikidata our standard practices will change. This will have an impact on new and old projects. Please consider the technical requirements of a project and do not consider new projects when they will not get the tools and the support they need. Thanks, Gerard
On 3 April 2012 06:40, Samuel Klein sj@wikimedia.org wrote:
With the launch of the WikiData effort, I am reminded that we should return to our early willingness to experiment with new project ideas. This means both starting new types of projects (like commons, like wikidata!) and closing / archiving / spinning off projects (like the sep11 wiki).
Two things I would love to see in the near future:
- a fixed new-project process, and at least one proposal evaluated
through it. Starting to work through the backlog of new project ideas/requests that have existing active projects elsewhere
- a global list of areas needing free knowledge, and how far we are
as a society towards reaching that goal
SJ
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Samuel Klein sj@wikimedia.org Date: Mon, Jul 11, 2011 at 2:01 AM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] They do make or break reputations To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
I would love to see the new project process on Meta come back online. (much of this email is posted to [[m:talk:new project proposals]])
I could use some help in making this happen - we need to start an incubator process for ideas with support, and a separate process for proposing existing projects that have been incubated elsewhere for support or hosting. The meta page for each proposed project should track its progress, whether offsite or on the incubator... a project infobox should be designed... an interested group (if less formal than langcom) should go through and review the backlog of proposals and suggest the necessary next step for each.
On Sun, Jul 10, 2011 at 11:48 PM, Alec Conroy alecmconroy@gmail.com wrote:
You can always make Wikinfo a sister project.
A space to hold POV debates would be an interesting intermediate ground between no-restraint edit wars and topic bans, for those in heated argument. Is Wikinfo designed for this? I was thinking of something more like 'Wikireason'. There have been various proposals for an 'argument wiki' over the years, but I've never seen a working implementation.
I have actually been independently trying to think of other wikis that should be "sister projects". Some are really obvious and non-controversial--
SNPedia, for example, an encyclopedia of single nucleotide polymorphisms
and related studies Yes. Link: http://www.snpedia.com/index.php/SNPedia
Genealogy: WeRelate and Rodovid. Both remarkable and lovely projects. Combinable, if all parties could be brought together. Both could use support; I've touched on the possibility of becoming WMF projects with each, and they are willing to discuss it. The result would be by far the largest free collection of genealogy information, with support from one of the major libraries studyig and archiving related data in the US
Children's encyclopedia: WikiKids, Vikidia, Grundschulwiki, Wikimini. These projects could be coordinated better to share ideas and lessons, and could use more visibility. Some people active in these projects are already Wikimedians.
Dictionaries: OmegaWiki. This multilingual dictionary could help revamp our toolchain for Wiktionary, which remains a bit broken.
Interface translation: TranslateWiki. iirc it does not want to be a WMF project per se, but could use more explicit support than we have given so far.
Citations and bibliography: AcaWiki (and the budding WikiScholar).
Wikified maps: Wikimapia. currently profitable and popular; probably fine on their own. However they use a non-free map stack and use an NC license; finding a way to help that project migrate to a free stack and license [now that there is a free orthorectified aerial map available http://blog.stevecoast.com/im-working-at-microsoft-and-were-donating-ima] would be of benefit to the whole world.
Other projects for which there is a supply of raw materials available from content donors (which we cannot currently accept):
- Annotated source materials and their translations: Part of Wikisource++
?
- Translation memory: Part of Translatewiki++ ?
- Public datasets: Wikidata
- Music scores: Wikimusic
We're at the point where the lack of diversity of our English language project 'styles' may be a major factor dissuading new users from participation.
It is certainly one of the factors.
Sam.
-- Samuel Klein identi.ca:sj w:user:sj +1 617 529 4266
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