On 8/20/06, Michael R. Irwin michael_irwin@verizon.net wrote:
Robert Scott Horning wrote:
Michael R. Irwin wrote:
I usually assume since Wikiversity is starting at zero we cannot afford to be limiting our horizons and shrinking. Of course Wikipedia has proven me very wrong. The proper frame of reference is the internet and by shrinking their potential growth and diversity they have achieved a god king ruled encyclopedia which is obviously of decent quality for most people.
Whether a learning institution can achieve success via this formula remains to be seen. Whether the arriving Wikiversity participants will put up with this formula after a few communities form also remains to be seen.
regards, mirwin
I will point out that Wikiversity is not going to have necessarily the God-King type person like Jimbo who is going to be ever-present but yet nowhere. Yeah, Jimbo himself will show up from time to time (hopfully not as damaging as he's been on Wikibooks BTW). There isn't any "one" person that is going to stand out and be able to "pull the plug" on everything, nor have the social standing of Jimbo on Wikipedia. We are going to all be more or less equals in that regard. Yeah, there are going to be some very active and "prominent" individuals that will certainly be leaders, but we won't be having somebody who is going to make pronouncements that are simply unquestioned.
I hope it works out that way for everybody. I still think this type of project has a lot of potential. As a result of some recent research I have become much more aware of the overall "leadership" structure/chain between the Wikimedia Foundation and its projects. I am not confident of any effective mechanism evolving soon to allow specific people to undertake specific tasks with both the solid backing of the local community and a high level of confidence of reasonable responses at higher levels. Unfortunately some projects and tasks that Wikiversity will need to undertake fairly soon are simply too large for a small group of people to tackle on speculation that the decision loops as is can keep up.
I'm not sure exactly what kinds of "projects and tasks" you're referring to that would require some sort of "mechanism" that doesn't already exist within Wikimedia. I'd remind you that Wikimedia is a community of volunteers, some of whom are more involved in the organisational matters than others. If you want to make organisational suggestions, you can bring them up on foundation-l for discussion.
[snip]
Cormac