The minutes of the last board meeting suggested that money was being accepted to found a Wikijunior project. Now, while I can understand that it wasn't entirely initiated by the board, being approached by an outside foundation at all, it seems that once again, it's been decided at a board-level, and there's going to be no discussion in the community as to whether we actually should have a Wikijunior project at all. If I remember correctly, this has been discussed many times before - and has not generally received a good response. Yet now I hear that it's going ahead anyway.
I just hope that this isn't going to be a repeat of the Wikispecies saga. If we are going to fork the project, it is not that hard to throw together a proposal, ala Wikinews - or at least publicly discuss the darn thing first.
-- ambi
I would like to perhaps make a comment on it, which I hope you will not find rude.
One of the mission of the board is to find money. This money is not meant to party, it is meant to make the project work and proceed.
One of the way we can do this is by going for grants.
As such, some dedicated users who care for the project and want it to go forward (in this case Danny, who is NOT a member of the board) are using their free time and energy to ask for grants.
Some foundation offered us money to us, for a project that many editors found great. So, we accepted.
Danny wrote a proposal here : http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikijunior And invited people to register. And several people already gave their support. As far as I can see, no one opposed. I do not even see your opposition.
You are most welcome to discuss the issue over there.
Rebecca a écrit:
The minutes of the last board meeting suggested that money was being accepted to found a Wikijunior project. Now, while I can understand that it wasn't entirely initiated by the board, being approached by an outside foundation at all, it seems that once again, it's been decided at a board-level, and there's going to be no discussion in the community as to whether we actually should have a Wikijunior project at all. If I remember correctly, this has been discussed many times before - and has not generally received a good response. Yet now I hear that it's going ahead anyway.
I just hope that this isn't going to be a repeat of the Wikispecies saga. If we are going to fork the project, it is not that hard to throw together a proposal, ala Wikinews - or at least publicly discuss the darn thing first.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikijunior
-- ambi
Of course we need money - but this was a specific grant for a project which, like Wikispecies, was not previously on the agenda, and if it had been discussed at all, had received negative responses. It's not a small thing, and would resemble a significant fork. So, considering this - and considering what Wikinews is currently going through - and Wikiversity will soon have to - in the aftermath of the Wikispecies fiasco, I'm a little bemused that this is being given the same treatment as was so controversial with Wikispecies.
If Wikimedia is going to be applying for grants, it'd be nice to see, as happened with the NEH grant, discussions over whether we actually want to go for said grant, and if we are prepared to meet the conditions that that would entail. In that case, it was decided - largely by the community - that the proposal wouldn't go ahead - and that one didn't involve a considerable fork of the project.
-- ambi
On Tue, 26 Oct 2004 06:58:41 +0200, Anthere anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
I would like to perhaps make a comment on it, which I hope you will not find rude.
One of the mission of the board is to find money. This money is not meant to party, it is meant to make the project work and proceed.
One of the way we can do this is by going for grants.
As such, some dedicated users who care for the project and want it to go forward (in this case Danny, who is NOT a member of the board) are using their free time and energy to ask for grants.
Some foundation offered us money to us, for a project that many editors found great. So, we accepted.
Danny wrote a proposal here : http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikijunior And invited people to register. And several people already gave their support. As far as I can see, no one opposed. I do not even see your opposition.
You are most welcome to discuss the issue over there.
Rebecca a écrit:
The minutes of the last board meeting suggested that money was being accepted to found a Wikijunior project. Now, while I can understand that it wasn't entirely initiated by the board, being approached by an outside foundation at all, it seems that once again, it's been decided at a board-level, and there's going to be no discussion in the community as to whether we actually should have a Wikijunior project at all. If I remember correctly, this has been discussed many times before - and has not generally received a good response. Yet now I hear that it's going ahead anyway.
I just hope that this isn't going to be a repeat of the Wikispecies saga. If we are going to fork the project, it is not that hard to throw together a proposal, ala Wikinews - or at least publicly discuss the darn thing first.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikijunior
-- ambi
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
I support what Angela said.
You should keep in mind that when a grant inquiry is made, we are not as specific as to say "we would like money to create a new project doing this and that". Actually, what I could come to fear would be that we hesitate sending grant proposal, in fear of receiving money for a project which would not be supported afterwards...
This said, I agree that grant requests should be more visible. The problem is that basically, except for Danny who did a lot, the board and Sj and Brian who accepted to help me, I think no one has made much effort in the direction of grants (sorry if I missed someone).
When it turns that doing such work is not raising interest, one tend to give up talking about it, and just manage alone.
For example, I recently sent an inquiry letter to National Geographic and told one english editor working on the topic concerned. I had no comment whatsoever (thank god, I had some feedback on fr :-)). Well, next time, I do not think I will contact that user again if the inquiry is accepted.
People motivation to have others involved can be seriously hurt by lack of reaction.
I think that you are correct that grants should be discussed openly, but this can only occur if there is feedback from the community.
As for wikijunior wikireaders having opposition or be largely considered as a fork, I currently see no evidence.
Rebecca a écrit:
Of course we need money - but this was a specific grant for a project which, like Wikispecies, was not previously on the agenda, and if it had been discussed at all, had received negative responses. It's not a small thing, and would resemble a significant fork. So, considering this - and considering what Wikinews is currently going through - and Wikiversity will soon have to - in the aftermath of the Wikispecies fiasco, I'm a little bemused that this is being given the same treatment as was so controversial with Wikispecies.
If Wikimedia is going to be applying for grants, it'd be nice to see, as happened with the NEH grant, discussions over whether we actually want to go for said grant, and if we are prepared to meet the conditions that that would entail. In that case, it was decided - largely by the community - that the proposal wouldn't go ahead - and that one didn't involve a considerable fork of the project.
-- ambi
On Tue, 26 Oct 2004 06:58:41 +0200, Anthere anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
I would like to perhaps make a comment on it, which I hope you will not find rude.
One of the mission of the board is to find money. This money is not meant to party, it is meant to make the project work and proceed.
One of the way we can do this is by going for grants.
As such, some dedicated users who care for the project and want it to go forward (in this case Danny, who is NOT a member of the board) are using their free time and energy to ask for grants.
Some foundation offered us money to us, for a project that many editors found great. So, we accepted.
Danny wrote a proposal here : http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikijunior And invited people to register. And several people already gave their support. As far as I can see, no one opposed. I do not even see your opposition.
You are most welcome to discuss the issue over there.
Rebecca a écrit:
The minutes of the last board meeting suggested that money was being accepted to found a Wikijunior project. Now, while I can understand that it wasn't entirely initiated by the board, being approached by an outside foundation at all, it seems that once again, it's been decided at a board-level, and there's going to be no discussion in the community as to whether we actually should have a Wikijunior project at all. If I remember correctly, this has been discussed many times before - and has not generally received a good response. Yet now I hear that it's going ahead anyway.
I just hope that this isn't going to be a repeat of the Wikispecies saga. If we are going to fork the project, it is not that hard to throw together a proposal, ala Wikinews - or at least publicly discuss the darn thing first.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikijunior
-- ambi
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
I think that you are correct that grants should be discussed openly, but this can only occur if there is feedback from the community.
I think these really need to be more broadly advertised. When an attempt was made to collaboratively write the NEH proposal, it was on the top of Recent Changes on en for days, if not weeks. It got some attention - and subsequently the decision was made that it wouldn't be a wise step to proceed. It'd be nice to have a central place to announce these sort of things, also. I don't know if I'd be of much use, but it'd be nice to know what's happening there.
As for wikijunior wikireaders having opposition or be largely considered as a fork, I currently see no evidence.
If it's just going to be a WikiReader, then that's fine.
However, the current proposal clearly mentions an online version, which would clearly be a fork. I'm not even necessarily opposed to that, but if it's going to get higher priority than some (i.e. Wikiversity, Wikimorial) which people have been pushing for for ages, it would be nice to at least see some sort of discussion (ala Wikinews) first.
-- ambi
Rebecca wrote:
However, the current proposal clearly mentions an online version, which would clearly be a fork.
I think we need to be a lot more careful with terminology. Not every new thing is a "fork".
--Jimbo
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
I think we need to be a lot more careful with terminology. Not every new thing is a "fork".
Well, insofar as it's a fork of the community's development effort---a diversion of work that would otherwise go into one of the other projects---it could be considered such. Whether that's the case is arguable, of course.
-Mark
Delirium (delirium@hackish.org) [041027 12:30]:
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
I think we need to be a lot more careful with terminology. Not every new thing is a "fork".
Well, insofar as it's a fork of the community's development effort---a diversion of work that would otherwise go into one of the other projects---it could be considered such. Whether that's the case is arguable, of course.
Highly. Although there will be some competition in effort (if I had 48 hours a day to edit Wikipedia ...), in the end volunteers do what they want to do; all a project leader can do is entice them in a particular direction. When herding cats, find something that works like tuna. Also, it's not like there aren't thousands and millions of people who could be drawn into the project - large as Wikimedia is, I think we've hardly scratched the surface of the possible contributor pile.
- d.
Delirium wrote:
Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
I think we need to be a lot more careful with terminology. Not every new thing is a "fork".
Well, insofar as it's a fork of the community's development effort---a diversion of work that would otherwise go into one of the other projects---it could be considered such. Whether that's the case is arguable, of course.
It seems that four letter words beginning with "f" and ending with "k" have managed to pick up subjective baggage in their travels. Yes, we need to be more careful with terminology, but it seems that the word in question has lost its power, and a "f***" is no longer as evil as it once was.
Ec
--- "Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales" jwales@wikia.com wrote:
I think we need to be a lot more careful with terminology. Not every new thing is a "fork".
Wikijunior will not be a fork if it is developed on Wikibooks. It will just be a set of booklets aimed toward kids. A static version of milestone snapshots could be hosted in a place that would be deemed "safe" for kids. WikiReaders would also be created.
None of that would be a fork. Setting up a separate wiki to develop Wikijunior *would*.
-- Daniel
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
Rebecca wrote:
In that case, it was decided - largely by the community - that the proposal wouldn't go ahead - and that one didn't involve a considerable fork of the project.
This is actually not accurate. The NEH grant would have gone ahead, except that we ran out of time. We heard about it too late, and as it was our first major grant proposal, there was a lot of background work that needed to be done.
Each subsequent proposal is easier, because we have now formed the groundwork to do these in a more efficient manner.
--Jimbo
Rebecca wrote:
The minutes of the last board meeting suggested that money was being accepted to found a Wikijunior project.
The proposal is still under discussion. Whether Wikijunior will be a separate project has not been decided by the board. The only thing the board has approved was the proposal that was sent to the Beck Foundation, and the only commitment mentioned in that was to:
"release a pamphlet of 48 full-color pages (8½" x 11") on a topic related to animals by December 2005."
This is currently no more than a Wikireader, something that does not need a project-wide vote in my opinion. There have already been various print projects not formally approved by the board, and I don't view Wikijunior _at this stage_ as anything more than that. There is a possibility it could be more, and that it might end up being a separate site, but whether than happens ought to be subject to the same conditions that Wikinews and other proposed projects will be. Having said that, I'm not sure starting a children's Wikipedia would be a separate project any more than starting new language Wikipedias are, and those are decided at the moment by developers, not by the board. There was certainly no board approval for the recently started projects in Old English or Gothic.
Angela.
I've got this hunch that a (hypothetical) Wiki-kid-pedia would be of remarkably high philosophical and scientific quality, whereas a Teeniepedia would largely consist of "J45ON WINSCOTTLE ISA WANKARRR!!", "I LuV mArY JaNe." and "BENNIE {heart} SIMONE!!!" Maybe we should bar participation from anyone between ages 10 and 20? (I'm joking.)
On 26 Oct 2004, at 10:39, Angela wrote:
Rebecca wrote:
The minutes of the last board meeting suggested that money was being accepted to found a Wikijunior project.
The proposal is still under discussion. Whether Wikijunior will be a separate project has not been decided by the board. The only thing the board has approved was the proposal that was sent to the Beck Foundation, and the only commitment mentioned in that was to:
"release a pamphlet of 48 full-color pages (8½" x 11") on a topic related to animals by December 2005."
This is currently no more than a Wikireader, something that does not need a project-wide vote in my opinion. There have already been various print projects not formally approved by the board, and I don't view Wikijunior _at this stage_ as anything more than that. There is a possibility it could be more, and that it might end up being a separate site, but whether than happens ought to be subject to the same conditions that Wikinews and other proposed projects will be. Having said that, I'm not sure starting a children's Wikipedia would be a separate project any more than starting new language Wikipedias are, and those are decided at the moment by developers, not by the board. There was certainly no board approval for the recently started projects in Old English or Gothic.
Angela. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Jens Ropers (ropers@ropersonline.com) [041026 18:54]:
I've got this hunch that a (hypothetical) Wiki-kid-pedia would be of remarkably high philosophical and scientific quality, whereas a Teeniepedia would largely consist of "J45ON WINSCOTTLE ISA WANKARRR!!", "I LuV mArY JaNe." and "BENNIE {heart} SIMONE!!!" Maybe we should bar participation from anyone between ages 10 and 20?
Only if they haven't achieved at least sysop/admin status on another wikipedia?
(I'm amazed at the number of high quality contributors on en: who are under 16.)
(I'm joking.)
Oh, I don't know ;-)
- d.
Wikipedian, s. A subspecies of homo sapiens sapiens. Wikipedians are indistinguishable from ordinary humans on grounds of their outward appearance, but they can be easily identified as all Wikipedians will only ever own a limited set of cutlery in their households. That's because Wikipedians have a congenital aversion of forks.
On 26 Oct 2004, at 10:39, Angela wrote:
Rebecca wrote:
The minutes of the last board meeting suggested that money was being accepted to found a Wikijunior project.
The proposal is still under discussion. Whether Wikijunior will be a separate project has not been decided by the board. The only thing the board has approved was the proposal that was sent to the Beck Foundation, and the only commitment mentioned in that was to:
"release a pamphlet of 48 full-color pages (8½" x 11") on a topic related to animals by December 2005."
This is currently no more than a Wikireader, something that does not need a project-wide vote in my opinion. There have already been various print projects not formally approved by the board, and I don't view Wikijunior _at this stage_ as anything more than that. There is a possibility it could be more, and that it might end up being a separate site, but whether than happens ought to be subject to the same conditions that Wikinews and other proposed projects will be. Having said that, I'm not sure starting a children's Wikipedia would be a separate project any more than starting new language Wikipedias are, and those are decided at the moment by developers, not by the board. There was certainly no board approval for the recently started projects in Old English or Gothic.
Angela. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Rebecca wrote:
The minutes of the last board meeting suggested that money was being accepted to found a Wikijunior project. Now, while I can understand that it wasn't entirely initiated by the board, being approached by an outside foundation at all, it seems that once again, it's been decided at a board-level, and there's going to be no discussion in the community as to whether we actually should have a Wikijunior project at all. If I remember correctly, this has been discussed many times before - and has not generally received a good response. Yet now I hear that it's going ahead anyway.
It does seem like a waste of valuable resources.
Ec
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