I don't think that money is "strictly" the problem.

I just think that if sister projects (well, I'll talk about Wikisource here) would be "in the minds" of developers and project managers, they would really scale.

I mean: the WMF thinks all the time about Wikipedia.
They have staff on it who thinks about software maintenance, software development, editor retention, GLAM relationships, and I could go on and on.

Why sister project do not fit in *any* of this?

*Everything* which has been done on Wikisource has been done by volunteers (sometime by the chapters).

All the crucial software developments I know (the proofread page, for example) has been done by ThomasV, Tpt, Phe (I personally don't know others).

The community recently thought about Google Summer of Codes to have people deveops tools and piece of software. They do, but then it's almost impossible to really integrate them in the main software, so they are left there.

The Individual Engagement Grant that me and David did was simply aimed to gather the community and try to do things together, spread the good ideas, join scattered individuals and communities.

We had some results, that the WMF could take and build upon (think about the survey).

I'm getting a little tired, every year at Wikimania, to hear the same praise of Wikisource by WMF Board or Staff but being told that we are "supported" but not in the "priority list".

I would think that there are some many low hanging fruits that donors money would be well spent (ie. the Wikisource contest that is running now on several Wikisources. In Italy, the chapter gave 100 euros for the prizes, and we gained 4300 proofread pages in a single week (it takes 6 months for the community to get those numbers)).

I'm sorry if I sound like a broken record, but it's my perception that a minimal effort from the WMF could lead to major results. I still don't understand why they do not think about that.

Aubrey

PS: I think about the WMF because for chapters is more difficult to step in and work on core software related matters. Chapters can and do work on GLAM partnerships, liasons, collaboration, digitization plans. "Local" stuff. At least, that is my perception (also, as a chapter president).  

On Wed, Nov 26, 2014 at 12:53 PM, Pierre-Yves Beaudouin <pierre.beaudouin@gmail.com> wrote:

Again, money is not the problem. Chapters may probably help Wikisource. Crowdfunding could also be a solution.

Pyb

2014-11-26 12:38 GMT+01:00 Federico Leva (Nemo) <nemowiki@gmail.com>:

See https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:APG/Staff_proposal_assessment_form : there seems to still be an assumption that Wikipedia is ok by default while everything else needs to be justified.

Nemo

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