One thing I find irritating and complex about our structure is the proliferation of small wikis. Now I've no objection to the idea that we have a wiki for every language on Earth, though where languages are mutually intelligible such as the major dialects of English it seems sensible to me that we combine them in one wiki - if necessary with spelling and alphabet being subject to user preference.
But I see no reason why ten wiki, Strategy and the various wikimanias each need their own wiki as opposed to being projects within meta.
On a broader and more radical note, why do we need separate wikis for wikiquote, wikiversity, wikipedia wikinews and wiktionary? Surely each of those could be separate namespaces within a language wiki?
This would make it much easier when people create an article on wikipedia that is really a wiktionary or wikinews article as one could just move it. It would immediately reduce the number of userpages, watchlists and usertalk pages that one needed to maintain to one per language (plus meta and commons). It would also foster cooperation between editors across what are currently different projects if you had one wiki for each language, as individual wikiprojects would now work across what are currently quite separate news, quote and pedia projects.
WereSpielChequers
Dear colleague,
What you say makes absolute sence. I have the suspicion that there was a time, around 2009, that new activities in WMF were eager to have a wiki of its own: Strategy, Outreach and so on. Alas, after a while of retention, there came Ten wiki. The intention was to have a website for the public, but I don't believe in creating again and again more and more communication channels. I see the same tendency in WMNL, by the way.
About the sister projects such as Wiktionary and Wikisource: there is ALS.WP doing that already, maybe knowing that it would be hard to create thoses sister projects in ALS (Alemannic). In general I would like to see more bounds between the sisters, including Wikipedia. We had that discussion with regard to a rebranding, going under the name of Wikipedia only and have a Wikipedia Foundation, a Wikipedia dictionary (Wiktionary), a Wikipedia Text Books (Wikibooks) and so on.
But in those sister projects communities, I have met fierce resistance to any new branding or technical rearrangement. They even tend to avoid to associate themselves with Wikipedia. They want to grow on their own appeal and strengh. (They also are annoyed when Wikipedians come to a sister project and don't learn immediately that the rules differ.)
Kind regards Ziko van Dijk
2011/7/1 WereSpielChequers werespielchequers@gmail.com:
One thing I find irritating and complex about our structure is the proliferation of small wikis. Now I've no objection to the idea that we have a wiki for every language on Earth, though where languages are mutually intelligible such as the major dialects of English it seems sensible to me that we combine them in one wiki - if necessary with spelling and alphabet being subject to user preference.
But I see no reason why ten wiki, Strategy and the various wikimanias each need their own wiki as opposed to being projects within meta.
On a broader and more radical note, why do we need separate wikis for wikiquote, wikiversity, wikipedia wikinews and wiktionary? Surely each of those could be separate namespaces within a language wiki?
This would make it much easier when people create an article on wikipedia that is really a wiktionary or wikinews article as one could just move it. It would immediately reduce the number of userpages, watchlists and usertalk pages that one needed to maintain to one per language (plus meta and commons). It would also foster cooperation between editors across what are currently different projects if you had one wiki for each language, as individual wikiprojects would now work across what are currently quite separate news, quote and pedia projects.
WereSpielChequers
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On Fri, Jul 1, 2011 at 7:14 PM, Ziko van Dijk zvandijk@googlemail.com wrote:
About the sister projects such as Wiktionary and Wikisource: there is ALS.WP doing that already, maybe knowing that it would be hard to create thoses sister projects in ALS (Alemannic). In general I would like to see more bounds between the sisters, including Wikipedia. We had that discussion with regard to a rebranding, going under the name of Wikipedia only and have a Wikipedia Foundation, a Wikipedia dictionary (Wiktionary), a Wikipedia Text Books (Wikibooks) and so on.
I don't second that.
Also we need to consolidate the brand Wikimedia.
I wrote in this list about that and made some mockups but had no feedback.[0] :(
[0] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2010-December/063014.html
There are much more "meta-wikis" that could be merged: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_wikis#Organizational_and_planning_projects
Ziko van Dijk, 02/07/2011 00:14:
But in those sister projects communities, I have met fierce resistance to any new branding or technical rearrangement. They even tend to avoid to associate themselves with Wikipedia. They want to grow on their own appeal and strengh. (They also are annoyed when Wikipedians come to a sister project and don't learn immediately that the rules differ.)
And with good reason. See also http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposal_talk:Brand_name_consolidation (this is a perennial proposal).
Nemo
Hi Nemo, you are not very specific - the discussion on Strategory you are linking to contains a lot of good reasons provided by Dedalus. Indeed, if you talk to the press, or to media experts, they all know "Wikipedia" but not "Wikimedia". The most simple and reasonable way is to use the famous brand, not to invest in "Wikimedia".
With regard to the sister projects, I feel a lot of vigorous emotions but no arguments. Ziko
2011/7/2 Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.com:
There are much more "meta-wikis" that could be merged: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_wikis#Organizational_and_planning_projects
Ziko van Dijk, 02/07/2011 00:14:
But in those sister projects communities, I have met fierce resistance to any new branding or technical rearrangement. They even tend to avoid to associate themselves with Wikipedia. They want to grow on their own appeal and strengh. (They also are annoyed when Wikipedians come to a sister project and don't learn immediately that the rules differ.)
And with good reason. See also http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposal_talk:Brand_name_consolidation (this is a perennial proposal).
Nemo
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if you talk to the press, or to media experts, they all know "Wikipedia" but not "Wikimedia". The most simple and reasonable way is to use the famous brand, not to invest in "Wikimedia".
There's an even bigger opportunity here-- Make a brand new brand name that captures the ideology better than Wikipedia-Mediawiki-Wikimedia. Wikipedia's an encyclopedia, Mediawiki's the software, Wikimedia's the ISP-- and none of those names capture the "spirit of the movement". Coming up with a good brand name and associating it with our movement and our foundation-- whether the foundation ever changes its name formally or not, there should be a brand name for "Wikimedia projects, their users, and their allies". And unlike our other brand names, this one should actually be inspiring to people who don't already know what it means.
Am 02.07.11 14:17 schrieb Alec Conroy:
if you talk to the press, or to media experts, they all know "Wikipedia" but not "Wikimedia". The most simple and reasonable way is to use the famous brand, not to invest in "Wikimedia".
There's an even bigger opportunity here-- Make a brand new brand name that captures the ideology better than Wikipedia-Mediawiki-Wikimedia. Wikipedia's an encyclopedia, Mediawiki's the software, Wikimedia's the ISP-- and none of those names capture the "spirit of the movement". Coming up with a good brand name and associating it with our movement and our foundation-- whether the foundation ever changes its name formally or not, there should be a brand name for "Wikimedia projects, their users, and their allies". And unlike our other brand names, this one should actually be inspiring to people who don't already know what it means.
I beg your pardon, but Ziko and WereSpielChequers are absolutely right here. You won't manage to introduce another brand name after ten years of Wikipedia. Even if you tried, it would be to no avail. It was a huge mistake to introduce the sister projects under a different brand and to keep them apart from Wikipedia proper. After all, it did not foster creativity and diversity, but it rather split the movement into parts irreconcilable.
Regards, Jürgen.
On 4 Jul 2011, at 23:57, Juergen Fenn juergen.fenn@gmx.de wrote:
Am 02.07.11 14:17 schrieb Alec Conroy:
if you talk to the press, or to media experts, they all know "Wikipedia" but not "Wikimedia". The most simple and reasonable way is to use the famous brand, not to invest in "Wikimedia".
There's an even bigger opportunity here-- Make a brand new brand name that captures the ideology better than Wikipedia-Mediawiki-Wikimedia. Wikipedia's an encyclopedia, Mediawiki's the software, Wikimedia's the ISP-- and none of those names capture the "spirit of the movement". Coming up with a good brand name and associating it with our movement and our foundation-- whether the foundation ever changes its name formally or not, there should be a brand name for "Wikimedia projects, their users, and their allies". And unlike our other brand names, this one should actually be inspiring to people who don't already know what it means.
I beg your pardon, but Ziko and WereSpielChequers are absolutely right here. You won't manage to introduce another brand name after ten years of Wikipedia. Even if you tried, it would be to no avail. It was a huge mistake to introduce the sister projects under a different brand and to keep them apart from Wikipedia proper. After all, it did not foster creativity and diversity, but it rather split the movement into parts
I disagree, speaking from a position of some experience.
Wikipedia was not marketed well, per se. It was an innovative ANC exciting idea, launched at the right time to the right audience.
Even to this date; very little serious marketing had been done.
Now. With that said I agree - there is not a lot of point trying to establish a new brand. But WikiMedia is worth pursuing as an umbrella. This is a new decade, the internet has moved on (in a way it could be said to have left us behind, and we survive by being well known) and this is the perfect opportunity to work on the brand.
Im very hopeful the board has something to input here; this is squarely in their ballpark and we need quick and pivotal action on it.
This is not at all a re-branding issue but one of brand-extension - something any marketer would be on top of!
I do agree that more interaction should be fostered (although independence is a good thing for projects with radically different aims) and that smaller projects should be offered the opportunity to hijack wikipedias brand to Market themselves.
But remember they are still a little behind WP in age, in a few years they will hopefully pervade our consciousness in the same way.
Tom
On Mon, Jul 4, 2011 at 3:57 PM, Juergen Fenn juergen.fenn@gmx.de wrote:
Am 02.07.11 14:17 schrieb Alec Conroy:
There's an even bigger opportunity here-- Make a brand new brand name that captures the ideology better than Wikipedia-Mediawiki-Wikimedia.
Wikipedia will always be Wikipedia-- but what about Wikimedia?? What does its brand say beyond "We host Wikipedia and stuff like it" Now compare that with the magnitude of our vision of a world where everyone has access to all the world's knowledge and information. This is an awesome vision, a "Moonshot" kind of vision. Are we sure we just want to call it "The movement and foundation associated with Wikipedia"?
I beg your pardon, but Ziko and WereSpielChequers are absolutely right here. You won't manage to introduce another brand name after ten years of Wikipedia.
Not only CAN you introduce such a 'movement' brand name, but such a name is inevitable. Mediawiki is becoming ubiquitous and easier to use every day. As our movement and its projects undergo rapid diversification, there WILL be a name for the movement that takes the "The Wikipedia Vision" and extends it to every kind of content imaginable.
That paradigm shift is going to happen-- indeed it's already well underway. The Wikimedia Foundation is about more than just Wikipedia, and "The Wikimedia Movement" is about _way_ more than just Wikipedia. Unless we really think Wikimedia is the best name, it's never too late to switch. The general public doesn't know Wikimedia exists, they just call it "Wikipedia". We do so much more than just that, so we're ripe for a brand extension.
Alec
On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 8:39 AM, Alec Conroy alecmconroy@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Jul 4, 2011 at 3:57 PM, Juergen Fenn juergen.fenn@gmx.de wrote:
Am 02.07.11 14:17 schrieb Alec Conroy:
There's an even bigger opportunity here-- Make a brand new brand name that captures the ideology better than Wikipedia-Mediawiki-Wikimedia.
Wikipedia will always be Wikipedia-- but what about Wikimedia?? What does its brand say beyond "We host Wikipedia and stuff like it" Now compare that with the magnitude of our vision of a world where everyone has access to all the world's knowledge and information. This is an awesome vision, a "Moonshot" kind of vision. Are we sure we just want to call it "The movement and foundation associated with Wikipedia"?
A rebranding like this could be launched in tandem with the next significant project launch or makeover.
The Wikimedia Foundation is about more than just Wikipedia, and "The Wikimedia Movement" is about _way_ more than just Wikipedia. Unless we really think Wikimedia is the best name, it's never too late to switch. The general public doesn't know Wikimedia exists, they just call it "Wikipedia". We do so much more than just that, so we're ripe for a brand extension.
Right.
S.
I like a lot of what has been said, and would like to add my part.
Milos Rancic wrote:
There are two types of Wikimedia projects: those which could be
reasonably treated as extensions of Wikipedia and those which couldn't be. For example, Wiktionary (as it is presently) and Wikibooks are obvious extensions of Wikipedia: If you need shorter definitions, more philological than encyclopedic, you would put that in the form of dictionary. If you need to write in depth about some topic, you would use the form of book.
While I agree that Wiktionary looks like it would be an extension of Wikipedia, it would definitely need it's own namespace. I don't have any experience on it, so I don't know what they're opinion is. As for Wikibooks, it would never work. They are two different projects entirely. You can't write in-depth on a topic without leaving an encyclopedic form of writing and that would never work on Wikipedia.
Wikisource isn't going to merge for obvious reasons, just in case anyone is still wondering. Nor is Wikiversity, since Wikipedia would go up in smoke. WikiQuotes hardly sounds like an encyclopedia. Wikinews is too dynamic and has it's own set of problems to merge easily. It could be done though if given it's own namespace, and Wikipedia would definitely benefit. There are logistical problems though that would have to be dealt with. I'm not even sure why there is a WikiSpecies, though I have hardly looked at it.
I like the sound of "WikiCommons", it makes it sound as important as the others while still keeping the Common idea.
On Wed, Jul 6, 2011 at 12:55 PM, Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 8:39 AM, Alec Conroy alecmconroy@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Jul 4, 2011 at 3:57 PM, Juergen Fenn juergen.fenn@gmx.de
wrote:
Am 02.07.11 14:17 schrieb Alec Conroy:
There's an even bigger opportunity here-- Make a brand new brand name that captures the ideology better than Wikipedia-Mediawiki-Wikimedia.
Wikipedia will always be Wikipedia-- but what about Wikimedia?? What does its brand say beyond "We host Wikipedia and stuff like it" Now compare that with the magnitude of our vision of a world where everyone has access to all the world's knowledge and information. This is an awesome vision, a "Moonshot" kind of vision. Are we sure we just want to call it "The movement and foundation associated with Wikipedia"?
A rebranding like this could be launched in tandem with the next significant project launch or makeover.
The Wikimedia Foundation is about more than just Wikipedia, and "The Wikimedia Movement" is about _way_ more than just Wikipedia. Unless we really think Wikimedia is the best name, it's never too late to switch. The general public doesn't know Wikimedia exists, they just call it "Wikipedia". We do so much more than just that, so we're ripe for a brand extension.
Right.
S.
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Wikinews is too dynamic and has it's own set of problems to merge easily.
It could be done though if given it's own namespace, and Wikipedia would definitely benefit.
+1
In the topic area I work there are a lot of contributors writing content that is vastly more suited to Wikinews. A News: namespace would be really interesting; but of course it's unfair to step on the toes of a fledgling project. But perhaps in hindsight it should have been launched as a namespace.
Tom
On Wed, Jul 6, 2011 at 19:27, Arlen Beiler arlenbee@gmail.com wrote:
Milos Rancic wrote:
There are two types of Wikimedia projects: those which could be reasonably treated as extensions of Wikipedia and those which couldn't be. For example, Wiktionary (as it is presently) and Wikibooks are obvious extensions of Wikipedia: If you need shorter definitions, more philological than encyclopedic, you would put that in the form of dictionary. If you need to write in depth about some topic, you would use the form of book.
While I agree that Wiktionary looks like it would be an extension of Wikipedia, it would definitely need it's own namespace. I don't have any experience on it, so I don't know what they're opinion is. As for Wikibooks, it would never work. They are two different projects entirely. You can't write in-depth on a topic without leaving an encyclopedic form of writing and that would never work on Wikipedia.
Wikisource isn't going to merge for obvious reasons, just in case anyone is still wondering. Nor is Wikiversity, since Wikipedia would go up in smoke. WikiQuotes hardly sounds like an encyclopedia. Wikinews is too dynamic and has it's own set of problems to merge easily. It could be done though if given it's own namespace, and Wikipedia would definitely benefit. There are logistical problems though that would have to be dealt with. I'm not even sure why there is a WikiSpecies, though I have hardly looked at it.
I like the sound of "WikiCommons", it makes it sound as important as the others while still keeping the Common idea.
I don't think that you've understood the idea properly. Redirects + Incubator Extension would allow to xyz.wikipedia.org to have virtually separate project xyz.wikibooks.org. Yes, they would share the same admins (if they want that), their "global" RecentChanges and other technical benefits from having one project, but they would be also separate projects, with their own dynamics. So, you could write poetry inside of the special namespace "Poetry:" if you want and it wouldn't interfere with encyclopedic articles.
So, as it wouldn't be a technical issue, the things about we need to think are social. For example, it is not a technical problem to have Wikisource as a virtual project inside of one Wikipedia, it is just more sane to put it on Multilingual Wikisource because there are people who know how OCR and proofreading processes should be implemented. Similarly to that, having Wikiversity as virtual project inside of one Wikipedia would be harmful for both small groups: in the sense of editorial policies, Wikipedia has to follow strict rules, Wikiversity mustn't follow strict rules; which would create confusion inside of one small community.
Wikinews is in between based on how serious the work on news would be done. If it is dominated by short news about current events, virtual project inside of Wikipedia would be good enough. However, if there is a serious group of journalists, which want to work on other journalistic forms, like interviews are, for example, then they should have a separate project. And, again, it is not because of technical issues, but because of different approaches.
Am 05.07.11 14:39 schrieb Alec Conroy:
I beg your pardon, but Ziko and WereSpielChequers are absolutely right here. You won't manage to introduce another brand name after ten years of Wikipedia.
Not only CAN you introduce such a 'movement' brand name, but such a name is inevitable. Mediawiki is becoming ubiquitous and easier to use every day. As our movement and its projects undergo rapid diversification, there WILL be a name for the movement that takes the "The Wikipedia Vision" and extends it to every kind of content imaginable.
That paradigm shift is going to happen-- indeed it's already well underway.
Well, not in this country. Whenever I have a talk to non-wikipedians I have to explain at lengths what Wikipedia, Wikimedia, Mediawiki, etc. are all about. To put it bluntly, this collection of terms and projects is a complete mess, and it is no good because it just does not make any sense to split it all up into parts and pieces. Wikimedia is not the umbrella for all to hide underneath because hardly anybody knows it. People don't (and, they won't ever) say, let's look it up in Wikimedia, but rather in Wikipedia. You won't succeed if you would try to change it. So, get real, please. The fact is that Wikipedia made it into Duden, not Wikimedia.
Regards, Jürgen.
On Fri, Jul 1, 2011 at 6:52 PM, WereSpielChequers werespielchequers@gmail.com wrote:
One thing I find irritating and complex about our structure is the proliferation of small wikis. Now I've no objection to the idea that we have a wiki for every language on Earth, though where languages are mutually intelligible such as the major dialects of English it seems sensible to me that we combine them in one wiki - if necessary with spelling and alphabet being subject to user preference.
But I see no reason why ten wiki, Strategy and the various wikimanias each need their own wiki as opposed to being projects within meta.
I second that.
-- Fajro
On Fri, Jul 1, 2011 at 22:52, WereSpielChequers werespielchequers@gmail.com wrote:
But I see no reason why ten wiki, Strategy and the various wikimanias each need their own wiki as opposed to being projects within meta.
Outreach and Strategy could and should be folded back into Meta...
I couldn't agree more, now that the date has passed, so should ten.wikipedia. Outreach and Strategy have a mission, but nothing so distinct that it would be out of scope on Meta, and combining those three projects would reduce the overhead in time and process required to maintain all three/four wikis.
On Fri, Jul 1, 2011 at 6:24 PM, Tom Morris tom@tommorris.org wrote:
On Fri, Jul 1, 2011 at 22:52, WereSpielChequers werespielchequers@gmail.com wrote:
But I see no reason why ten wiki, Strategy and the various wikimanias each need their own wiki as opposed to being projects within meta.
Outreach and Strategy could and should be folded back into Meta...
-- Tom Morris http://tommorris.org/
Please don't print this e-mail out unless you want a hard copy of it. If you do, go ahead. I won't stop you. Nor will I waste your ink/toner with 300+ lines of completely pointless and legally unenforceable cargo cult blather about corporate confidentiality.
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On Fri, Jul 1, 2011 at 3:34 PM, . Courcelles courcelleswiki@gmail.comwrote:
I couldn't agree more, now that the date has passed, so should ten.wikipedia. Outreach and Strategy have a mission, but nothing so distinct that it would be out of scope on Meta, and combining those three projects would reduce the overhead in time and process required to maintain all three/four wikis.
Just to speak about tenwiki...
There has been an open discussion since March (no rush to close) about what to do with the site.[1] You're all welcome to participate in that if you have an opinion about what to do.
That discussion was interesting for this one, because it brings up issues such as that merging even a relatively small wiki like ten (565 content pages, 3,204 total pages) into Meta would probably take some considerable work.
Best regards,
Steven
1. https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ten/wiki/WP:VP#Ideas_for_what_to_do_w...
On Fri, Jul 1, 2011 at 3:34 PM, . Courcelles courcelleswiki@gmail.comwrote:
I couldn't agree more, now that the date has passed, so should ten.wikipedia. Outreach and Strategy have a mission, but nothing so distinct that it would be out of scope on Meta, and combining those three projects would reduce the overhead in time and process required to maintain all three/four wikis.
Just to speak about tenwiki...
There has been an open discussion since March (no rush to close) about what to do with the site.[1] You're all welcome to participate in that if you have an opinion about what to do.
That discussion was interesting for this one, because it brings up issues such as that merging even a relatively small wiki like ten (565 content pages, 3,204 total pages) into Meta would probably take some considerable work.
Best regards,
Steven
How about making it read only and just leave it as an archive?
Fred
A bot could do it, but that's not completely relevent.
On Sun, Jul 3, 2011 at 2:48 PM, Steven Walling steven.walling@gmail.comwrote:
On Fri, Jul 1, 2011 at 3:34 PM, . Courcelles <courcelleswiki@gmail.com
wrote:
I couldn't agree more, now that the date has passed, so should ten.wikipedia. Outreach and Strategy have a mission, but nothing so distinct that it would be out of scope on Meta, and combining those three projects would reduce the overhead in time and process required to
maintain
all three/four wikis.
Just to speak about tenwiki...
There has been an open discussion since March (no rush to close) about what to do with the site.[1] You're all welcome to participate in that if you have an opinion about what to do.
That discussion was interesting for this one, because it brings up issues such as that merging even a relatively small wiki like ten (565 content pages, 3,204 total pages) into Meta would probably take some considerable work.
Best regards,
Steven
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ten/wiki/WP:VP#Ideas_for_what_to_do_w... _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
That discussion was interesting for this one, because it brings up issues such as that merging even a relatively small wiki like ten (565 content pages, 3,204 total pages) into Meta would probably take some considerable work.
We need to lower barriers to cross-project collaboration. A SUL-linked userspace and crossproject transclusion will be a good first start. We ultimately want to be in a place where merges can be done with only trivial effort.
On Sun, Jul 3, 2011 at 22:48, Steven Walling steven.walling@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Jul 1, 2011 at 3:34 PM, . Courcelles courcelleswiki@gmail.comwrote:
I couldn't agree more, now that the date has passed, so should ten.wikipedia. Outreach and Strategy have a mission, but nothing so distinct that it would be out of scope on Meta, and combining those three projects would reduce the overhead in time and process required to maintain all three/four wikis.
Just to speak about tenwiki...
There has been an open discussion since March (no rush to close) about what to do with the site.[1] You're all welcome to participate in that if you have an opinion about what to do.
That discussion was interesting for this one, because it brings up issues such as that merging even a relatively small wiki like ten (565 content pages, 3,204 total pages) into Meta would probably take some considerable work.
With tenwiki, as with the older Wikimania wikis, there doesn't seem much point in merging them into Meta. Just leave 'em once they are done, but Outreach and Strategy are continuing and it'd be a lot easier if they could just be part of Meta.
Plus, the "tenth anniversary year" of Wikipedia is still rolling, and the tenth anniversary of Wikipedias in Polish, Afrikaans, Norwegian and Esperanto are coming up this year.
While I agree on principle, it can be more than difficult to merge sister projects at this point of time. Wiktionary, wikibook, and wikisource and so on have very different users. Some of them even dread the idea of belonging to Wikipedia. Cross-project colaboration must be encouraged, yes, but placing all of them in one wiki won't make things better in principle.
However, small not cared projects should be joined. Those without a visible community after some talking with the only existing editor(many wikisources and wiktionaries) could be merged as to foster the develop of those projects.
Alhen @alhen_ at twitter 591-79592235
On Mon, Jul 4, 2011 at 8:09 AM, Tom Morris tom@tommorris.org wrote:
On Sun, Jul 3, 2011 at 22:48, Steven Walling steven.walling@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Jul 1, 2011 at 3:34 PM, . Courcelles <courcelleswiki@gmail.com wrote:
I couldn't agree more, now that the date has passed, so should ten.wikipedia. Outreach and Strategy have a mission, but nothing so distinct that it would be out of scope on Meta, and combining those
three
projects would reduce the overhead in time and process required to
maintain
all three/four wikis.
Just to speak about tenwiki...
There has been an open discussion since March (no rush to close) about
what
to do with the site.[1] You're all welcome to participate in that if you have an opinion about what to do.
That discussion was interesting for this one, because it brings up issues such as that merging even a relatively small wiki like ten (565 content pages, 3,204 total pages) into Meta would probably take some considerable work.
With tenwiki, as with the older Wikimania wikis, there doesn't seem much point in merging them into Meta. Just leave 'em once they are done, but Outreach and Strategy are continuing and it'd be a lot easier if they could just be part of Meta.
Plus, the "tenth anniversary year" of Wikipedia is still rolling, and the tenth anniversary of Wikipedias in Polish, Afrikaans, Norwegian and Esperanto are coming up this year.
-- Tom Morris http://tommorris.org/
Please don't print this e-mail out unless you want a hard copy of it. If you do, go ahead. I won't stop you. Nor will I waste your ink/toner with 300+ lines of completely pointless and legally unenforceable cargo cult blather about corporate confidentiality.
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Within the general concept of Merging Wikis I agree, it would be good in principle to have one uber-wiki that is the central hub of all community things (meta, outreach, strategy...). Each time we create a separate wiki Ward Cunningham kills a kitten.
I wonder - would it be possible in MediaWiki to make it possible for User accounts to be given read/edit permissions to different areas of the Wiki. If that were possible (which I'm sure is a common request from MediaWiki's Corporate users) then we would also be able to merge InternalWiki, CheckuserWiki, ChapComWiki to this uber-wiki. The WMF would also be able to merge their OfficeWiki, BoardWiki, and WikimediaFoundation.org. I'm sure that many Chapters also run at least two Wikis - one for the public and one for their elected Board.
Personally would like to this new uber-wiki be hosted at * http://www.wikimedia.org/* (rather than Meta) which is currently just a placeholder that points to all of the projects. Other relevant additions to MediaWiki would be having universal watchlists and universal User/UserTalk pages as well as the ability (which is coming in LiquidThreads v.3http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/LiquidThreads_3.0) to Watchlist specific individual threads in talkpages.
On a separate note, have we had a discussion recently about the name "Wikimedia Commons" and whether it would be a good idea to simply call it "WikiCommons" to make it consistent with the rest of the projects? Or, is this a perennial proposal? From what I understand, the reason that it was called that Wikimedia Commons originally was that was created to be a "service project" for the Wikipedia language editions and was not expected to be considered a "sister project" alongside WikiSource, WikiNews, WikiBooks... Now that it definitely IS a sister project, do you think it is a good idea to rename it? I note that a lot of people who reuse our multimedia are attributing it as coming from WikiCommons already anyway (google news search for the termhttp://news.google.com/news/search?aq=f&pz=1&cf=all&ned=us&hl=en&q=WikiCommons&btnmeta_news_search=Search+Newsfor example.)
-Liam
wittylama.com/blog Peace, love & metadata
On Mon, Jul 4, 2011 at 11:04 AM, Liam Wyatt liamwyatt@gmail.com wrote:
Within the general concept of Merging Wikis I agree, it would be good in principle to have one uber-wiki that is the central hub of all community things
+1
I wonder - would it be possible in MediaWiki to make it possible for User accounts to be given read/edit permissions to different areas of the Wiki.
It's possible, just rough around the edges.
Personally would like to this new uber-wiki be hosted at * http://www.wikimedia.org/* (rather than Meta)
Yes.
On a separate note, have we had a discussion recently about the name "Wikimedia Commons" and whether it would be a good idea to simply call it "WikiCommons"
Also a good idea.
SJ
On Mon, Jul 4, 2011 at 15:31, Alhen alhen.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
While I agree on principle, it can be more than difficult to merge sister projects at this point of time. Wiktionary, wikibook, and wikisource and so on have very different users. Some of them even dread the idea of belonging to Wikipedia. Cross-project colaboration must be encouraged, yes, but placing all of them in one wiki won't make things better in principle.
However, small not cared projects should be joined. Those without a visible community after some talking with the only existing editor(many wikisources and wiktionaries) could be merged as to foster the develop of those projects.
Yep, I wasn't suggesting merging Wiktionary and Wikisource into Wikipedia. But we don't need new wikis for cross-project collaboration or outreach: we have Meta, so use it!
One thing I find irritating and complex about our structure is the proliferation of small wikis. Now I've no objection to the idea that we have a wiki for every language on Earth, though where languages are mutually intelligible such as the major dialects of English it seems sensible to me that we combine them in one wiki - if necessary with spelling and alphabet being subject to user preference.
But I see no reason why ten wiki, Strategy and the various wikimanias each need their own wiki as opposed to being projects within meta.
On a broader and more radical note, why do we need separate wikis for wikiquote, wikiversity, wikipedia wikinews and wiktionary? Surely each of those could be separate namespaces within a language wiki?
This would make it much easier when people create an article on wikipedia that is really a wiktionary or wikinews article as one could just move it. It would immediately reduce the number of userpages, watchlists and usertalk pages that one needed to maintain to one per language (plus meta and commons). It would also foster cooperation between editors across what are currently different projects if you had one wiki for each language, as individual wikiprojects would now work across what are currently quite separate news, quote and pedia projects.
WereSpielChequers
Sometimes templates used on different wikis can be incompatible.
Fred
Yes, by all means, let's fold some of the different wikis back into one.
Every day I seem to bump into a new wiki which someone is expecting me to keep track of.
The proliferation of different wikis creates confusion, frustration and generally sub-optimal user journeys.
Also, if it was possible to use access levels in a more sophisticated way, we could further reduce the number of wikis we are expected to remember...
Chris WMUK
On 07/01/2011 11:52 PM, WereSpielChequers wrote:
One thing I find irritating and complex about our structure is the proliferation of small wikis. Now I've no objection to the idea that we have a wiki for every language on Earth, though where languages are mutually intelligible such as the major dialects of English it seems sensible to me that we combine them in one wiki - if necessary with spelling and alphabet being subject to user preference.
But I see no reason why ten wiki, Strategy and the various wikimanias each need their own wiki as opposed to being projects within meta.
On a broader and more radical note, why do we need separate wikis for wikiquote, wikiversity, wikipedia wikinews and wiktionary? Surely each of those could be separate namespaces within a language wiki?
This would make it much easier when people create an article on wikipedia that is really a wiktionary or wikinews article as one could just move it. It would immediately reduce the number of userpages, watchlists and usertalk pages that one needed to maintain to one per language (plus meta and commons). It would also foster cooperation between editors across what are currently different projects if you had one wiki for each language, as individual wikiprojects would now work across what are currently quite separate news, quote and pedia projects.
Thanks for raising this issue. Previously discussed system of redirects and Incubator Extension [1] would help not just to the Incubator, but to the languages with smaller amount of speakers, as well as to Meta forks. So, instead of having numerous meta wikis, we could have just one (Meta), with separate namespaces, which would get redirects. Thus, namespace "Strategy:" could be strategy.wikimedia.org; namespace "Research" could be research.wikimedia.org etc.
[1] http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/wiki/foundation/235020?page=last
On Sat, Jul 2, 2011 at 2:40 AM, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
On 07/01/2011 11:52 PM, WereSpielChequers wrote:
One thing I find irritating and complex about our structure is the proliferation of small wikis. Now I've no objection to the idea that we have a wiki for every language on Earth, though where languages are mutually intelligible such as the major dialects of English it seems sensible to me that we combine them in one wiki - if necessary with spelling and alphabet being subject to user preference.
But I see no reason why ten wiki, Strategy and the various wikimanias each need their own wiki as opposed to being projects within meta.
On a broader and more radical note, why do we need separate wikis for wikiquote, wikiversity, wikipedia wikinews and wiktionary? Surely each of those could be separate namespaces within a language wiki?
This would make it much easier when people create an article on wikipedia that is really a wiktionary or wikinews article as one could just move it. It would immediately reduce the number of userpages, watchlists and usertalk pages that one needed to maintain to one per language (plus meta and commons). It would also foster cooperation between editors across what are currently different projects if you had one wiki for each language, as individual wikiprojects would now work across what are currently quite separate news, quote and pedia projects.
Thanks for raising this issue. Previously discussed system of redirects and Incubator Extension [1] would help not just to the Incubator, but to the languages with smaller amount of speakers, as well as to Meta forks. So, instead of having numerous meta wikis, we could have just one (Meta), with separate namespaces, which would get redirects. Thus, namespace "Strategy:" could be strategy.wikimedia.org; namespace "Research" could be research.wikimedia.org etc.
[1] http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/wiki/foundation/235020?page=last
I agree, a focus on new namespaces (perhaps with differentiated editing permissions, per Liam) certainly looks like the best path forward to me.
Thanks, Richard (User:Pharos)
On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 10:38 AM, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote:
..
I agree, a focus on new namespaces (perhaps with differentiated editing permissions, per Liam) certainly looks like the best path forward to me.
Or we could just leave the sister projects alone. That is also a viable option.
For the English projects, clear separation between the projects is necessary so that they can grow different cultures. The sister projects are progressing nicely enough.
It is much easier to tell a potential transcriber about the Wikisource project, as opposed to trying to warn them about all the policies of Wikipedia, most of which have no bearing on transcribing.
On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 1:02 AM, John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 10:38 AM, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote:
..
I agree, a focus on new namespaces (perhaps with differentiated editing permissions, per Liam) certainly looks like the best path forward to me.
Or we could just leave the sister projects alone. That is also a viable option.
[snip]
Clarify: I mean new namespaces are the best way forward for our Meta-type content ("Strategy:", "Outreach:", "Research:", etc).
Thanks, Richard (User:Pharos)
On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 3:12 PM, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 1:02 AM, John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 10:38 AM, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote:
..
I agree, a focus on new namespaces (perhaps with differentiated editing permissions, per Liam) certainly looks like the best path forward to me.
Or we could just leave the sister projects alone. That is also a viable option.
[snip]
Clarify: I mean new namespaces are the best way forward for our Meta-type content ("Strategy:", "Outreach:", "Research:", etc).
Thanks, Richard
Thanks for clarifying Richard. I agree with merging those meta projects together.
Clarify: I mean new namespaces are the best way forward for our Meta-type content ("Strategy:", "Outreach:", "Research:", etc).
Thanks, Richard
Thanks for clarifying Richard. I agree with merging those meta projects together.
Right now, we're host to an assortment of projects, a collection of communities more than a single community. If we want to grow-- if we want to become a coherent global movement with a coherent global community, we need to work on reducing these inter-project barriers.
There are two very different strategies for how to do that.
The first strategy is to merge whenever possible. Try to designate/create a global space for ANYTHING meta, movement, or user-space style social content. So, for example, instead of being forced maintain multiple users pages, a user could have a single 'central' user page on the uberproject. (if they chose).
But there is another way we could do this. This second strategy is to keep separate things separate, but to reduce barriers across the 'separate' projects. Instead of fully merging, we just make it much much easier to 'connect' across projects. So, for example, creating a central set of global, multilingual templates that can be 'pulled' into any project.
Two different strategies in two different directions. To succeed, we're going to need them both.
On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 07:02, John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com wrote:
Or we could just leave the sister projects alone. That is also a viable option.
For the English projects, clear separation between the projects is necessary so that they can grow different cultures. The sister projects are progressing nicely enough.
It is much easier to tell a potential transcriber about the Wikisource project, as opposed to trying to warn them about all the policies of Wikipedia, most of which have no bearing on transcribing.
There are two types of Wikimedia projects: those which could be reasonably treated as extensions of Wikipedia and those which couldn't be. For example, Wiktionary (as it is presently) and Wikibooks are obvious extensions of Wikipedia: If you need shorter definitions, more philological than encyclopedic, you would put that in the form of dictionary. If you need to write in depth about some topic, you would use the form of book.
Wikisource and Wikiversity couldn't be treated as an extension of Wikipedia, as they assume a type of work different from Wikipedia: Wikisource gathers texts as they are, while Wikiversity has to question even basic principles of Wikipedia, as it indents to be an academic project.
Wikinews is in the middle. Creating news have different dynamics from creating the articles, but Wikipedians are keeping news up to date, although it is not the primary purpose of Wikipedia.
So, a small community could benefit from having Wiktionary and Wikibooks inside of their Wikipedia. At the other side, the same community would benefit more if it has technological and methodological support from Multilingual Wikisource. LangCom's proposal is on that line, but I am not sure has it been verbalized publicly.
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org