Hi all,
In advance of the IRC meeting on Saturday (UTC) [1], I'm raising the issue of the Greek Wikiversity to give some background to the current situation [2].
According to [2] (and from personal correspondences), GerardM, a member of the language subcommittee [3], "is concerned about a lack of structure and maturity in the Wikiversity project" and is therefore reluctant to authorise a new Greek Wikiversity. This acknowledgement of a lacking of structure is attributed to me, from my recent talk at the Wikimedia Nederland conference in Amsterdam. However, I'd first of all like to clear up what I said - which was that there are *questions that Wikiversity needs to address*, amongst which its ongoing relationship with Wikibooks. I explicitly acknowledged that Wikiversity was set up as an experiment, and was in the process of finding out how best to organise its resources, both internally, and with respect to other projects, particularly Wikibooks. I also acknowledged that my understanding of Wikiversity is hugely biased towards the English Wikiversity, and that there were different ways of organising materials and activities on other language Wikiversities. And, from the day as a whole, I observed that there is still some confusion between Wikiversity and Wikibooks, and that some Wikibooks communities (at least the Dutch) are incorporating non-textbook pedagogic material in Wikibooks in order to avoid "splitting" the existing Wikibooks community.
There's nothing much new in the above - we have always known that there is a subtle line between Wikiversity and Wikibooks, as well as being multiple perspectives on what either project should include. *However*, I would like to point out that these are issues that the Wikiversity, Wikibooks, and other communities will be working out as we develop - and, as has been made clear in our previous discussions on this list, will be negotiated in the context of each language community *on its/their own terms*.
Moving onto the current situation with the Greek Wikiversity, this is in the hands of the language subcommittee, seemingly being stalled by GerardM. However, as I've raised with the language subcommittee, and according to [3], the subcommittee is asked to assess the "feasibility of new language wikis" - which is *not* the 'feasibility of the *project*'. In my correspondence with the language subcommittee, GerardM has indicated that it might be problematic to authorise new language projects when questions still remain about the project as a whole - to which I have responded that this is outside the scope of the language subcommittee (also acknowledged by Pathoschild, a member of the langcom [4]), and asked GerardM to state clearly how his concerns relate to the scope of the subcommittee. I received no reply; I asked again two days ago, and am still awaiting response. (I've also made clear that my comments can be posted in public [4] - which hasn't been done yet.)
So, if the language subcommittee remains stalled on this issue (and whether or not GerardM has a veto, I don't know), then it would possibly be a matter for the board. (The special projects committee - of which I am a member, and which authorised the language subcommittee - has not responded to this issue, and is effectively dead in any case.) However, I would like the language subcommittee to make at least some response to what I've raised, so I would ask for some more time before bringing it up with the board (if that is necessary - and I hope it won't be). In the meantime, we can use the IRC meeting to discuss whether the Wikiversity community at large thinks it is a good idea to set up new language projects (one of GerardM's proposals), as well as further the discussion about Wikibooks and Wikiversity across different languages.
Thanks, Cormac
[1] http://beta.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:IRC_meeting:What_is_Wikiversity... [2] http://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pathoschild/Status/wv-el [3] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special_projects_subcommittees/Languages [4] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special_projects_subcommittees/Languages/Arch...
Hi all,
I am lucky that Cormac is clearing us what happened in Wikimedia Netherlands Conference. At first I would like to apologise my poor English.
According the first paragraph GerardM stopped the process of Greek Wikiversity responding to Cormac´s presentation. Well, I think it was not a good idea, to form a view to this issue just from someones presentation. Conferences are here to show peoples ideas, but not to refer about e.g. projects. What is more amazing to me, that he offers to go deeper this problem, but after several month (as it was said "next year"). There is also a question, how they understud "that there is a luck of structure". It would be nice to explain this, how it was menstion on the site of Cormaggio and how it is unerstood by others. Here I would like to highlight that fact, that Wikiversity wouldnt need so much structer as on other projects - as it was somewhere discussed.
Relationship between Wikibooks and Wikiversity: Well, here I personaly doesnt feel a problem - I mean we can exist separetly. I personaly think, there is a problem on the site of Wikibooks to find their own identity. It would be a nice to get more opinions and ideas of people from Wikibooks, who like to cover Wikiversity by Wikibooks. I think that wikibookians they are affraid of loosing something, but I dont think so, they will lost.
Finally, ir there was set by Cormaggio a problem of the relationship between these to projects it would be probably nice to make another IRC session with people from Wikibooks.
Thats all for me, I am looking forward tomorrow, well have a clear chat.
Regards, Juan
2007/12/7, Cormac Lawler cormaggio@gmail.com:
Hi all,
In advance of the IRC meeting on Saturday (UTC) [1], I'm raising the issue of the Greek Wikiversity to give some background to the current situation [2].
According to [2] (and from personal correspondences), GerardM, a member of the language subcommittee [3], "is concerned about a lack of structure and maturity in the Wikiversity project" and is therefore reluctant to authorise a new Greek Wikiversity. This acknowledgement of a lacking of structure is attributed to me, from my recent talk at the Wikimedia Nederland conference in Amsterdam. However, I'd first of all like to clear up what I said - which was that there are *questions that Wikiversity needs to address*, amongst which its ongoing relationship with Wikibooks. I explicitly acknowledged that Wikiversity was set up as an experiment, and was in the process of finding out how best to organise its resources, both internally, and with respect to other projects, particularly Wikibooks. I also acknowledged that my understanding of Wikiversity is hugely biased towards the English Wikiversity, and that there were different ways of organising materials and activities on other language Wikiversities. And, from the day as a whole, I observed that there is still some confusion between Wikiversity and Wikibooks, and that some Wikibooks communities (at least the Dutch) are incorporating non-textbook pedagogic material in Wikibooks in order to avoid "splitting" the existing Wikibooks community.
There's nothing much new in the above - we have always known that there is a subtle line between Wikiversity and Wikibooks, as well as being multiple perspectives on what either project should include. *However*, I would like to point out that these are issues that the Wikiversity, Wikibooks, and other communities will be working out as we develop - and, as has been made clear in our previous discussions on this list, will be negotiated in the context of each language community *on its/their own terms*.
Moving onto the current situation with the Greek Wikiversity, this is in the hands of the language subcommittee, seemingly being stalled by GerardM. However, as I've raised with the language subcommittee, and according to [3], the subcommittee is asked to assess the "feasibility of new language wikis" - which is *not* the 'feasibility of the *project*'. In my correspondence with the language subcommittee, GerardM has indicated that it might be problematic to authorise new language projects when questions still remain about the project as a whole - to which I have responded that this is outside the scope of the language subcommittee (also acknowledged by Pathoschild, a member of the langcom [4]), and asked GerardM to state clearly how his concerns relate to the scope of the subcommittee. I received no reply; I asked again two days ago, and am still awaiting response. (I've also made clear that my comments can be posted in public [4] - which hasn't been done yet.)
So, if the language subcommittee remains stalled on this issue (and whether or not GerardM has a veto, I don't know), then it would possibly be a matter for the board. (The special projects committee - of which I am a member, and which authorised the language subcommittee
- has not responded to this issue, and is effectively dead in any
case.) However, I would like the language subcommittee to make at least some response to what I've raised, so I would ask for some more time before bringing it up with the board (if that is necessary - and I hope it won't be). In the meantime, we can use the IRC meeting to discuss whether the Wikiversity community at large thinks it is a good idea to set up new language projects (one of GerardM's proposals), as well as further the discussion about Wikibooks and Wikiversity across different languages.
Thanks, Cormac
[1] http://beta.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:IRC_meeting:What_is_Wikiversity... [2] http://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pathoschild/Status/wv-el [3] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special_projects_subcommittees/Languages [4] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special_projects_subcommittees/Languages/Arch...
Wikiversity-l mailing list Wikiversity-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikiversity-l
Juan de Vojníkov wrote:
Hi all,
*snip*
Relationship between Wikibooks and Wikiversity: Well, here I personaly doesnt feel a problem - I mean we can exist separetly. I personaly think, there is a problem on the site of Wikibooks to find their own identity. It would be a nice to get more opinions and ideas of people from Wikibooks, who like to cover Wikiversity by Wikibooks. I think that wikibookians they are affraid of loosing something, but I dont think so, they will lost.
Finally, ir there was set by Cormaggio a problem of the relationship between these to projects it would be probably nice to make another IRC session with people from Wikibooks.
Thats all for me, I am looking forward tomorrow, well have a clear chat.
Regards, Juan
I am so disappointed that this is still an ongoing issue.... or at least perceived as one by some members of the Wikimedia community. That Wikiversity started on Wikibooks is true, and that there has been some sort of "identity crisis" on Wikibooks is also true. I could wax philosophically about why the problems on Wikibooks exist, but it has next to nothing to do with the relationship between Wikibooks and Wikiversity. I thought the VfD on en.wikibooks about Wikiversity made that clear enough, not to mention the large number of thoughts and opinions on this topic found on Meta when Wikiversity started would be sufficient to express the multitude of opinions on what Wikiversity should be.
I will note that there was a very vocal minority (who GerardM apparently is a part of) that were opposed to the creation of Wikiversity from the very beginning. Some of their objections had some very sound philosophical standings, but I'd like to point out that they were a minority opinion at best.
What is frustrating this whole process is more or less the inconsistency that has been applied to Wikiversity vs. other Wikimedia sister projects in terms of project creation, and this is yet another example. The "birth" of the English-language Wikiversity was a huge "fight" in terms of getting it accepted by the Wikimedia community, and I find it unfortunate that we have to keep fighting this same argument over and over again for each new language edition of Wikiversity. The one and only thing IMHO the language committee ought to be involved with is to decide if there is going to be a viable community that can sustain the growth and development of the new language edition. I'm not exactly sure if this is the case for the Greek Wikiversity community, but then again I'm saying simply that "I don't know". I haven't been working with too many in the Greek-language Wikibooks community either to know just how big of a community and how dedicated they may be....which was what a "language committee" was supposed to look into instead of having every Wikimedia community member know about every issue of every Wikimedia project.
As far as the English language Wikibooks and Wikiversity communities are concerned, while there is some overlap (and I hope that is sustained), there are some very different communities involved in each project, and some interesting perspective differences based on some of the "founding principles" that govern each community...and the goals of each community. There are some real differences, which is one of the reasons why there was a separation of the communities in the first place. As to if that was a good idea or not is something worthy of a separate debate, and when Wikiversity was a part of Wikibooks, I didn't really have a huge problem in terms of managing the Wikiversity content. I will say, however, that by becoming a separate project did breathe new life into Wikiversity and allowed a degree of freedom that I didn't see with the project while it was on Wikibooks. At least for the English language edition, there have been many very positive results that have occurred due to Wikiversity becoming independent of Wikibooks. Certainly the growth of content on Wikiversity is something that I don't think would have happened had Wikiversity remained on Wikibooks... but that is from my perspective of having admined Wikibooks for some time. I'm also afraid that some of the "housecleaning" on Wikibooks would have trashed Wikiversity, which thankfully the Wikiversity community never had to confront... again in part due to their being an independent Wikimedia project.
-- Robert Horning
On 12/7/07, Cormac Lawler cormaggio@gmail.com wrote:
So, if the language subcommittee remains stalled on this issue (and whether or not GerardM has a veto, I don't know), then it would possibly be a matter for the board.
I don't know what Gerard's take on the whole situation is, but I can really see no reason why the language committee should have any role at all in the decision to launch a Greek Wikiversity project. Certainly it is not within its mandate to judge the viability of projects _per se_.
Does Wikiversity have a process similar to the one Wikinews used to set up languages, where potential contributors register their interest?
Hi,
2007/12/8, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org:
On 12/7/07, Cormac Lawler cormaggio@gmail.com wrote:
So, if the language subcommittee remains stalled on this issue (and whether or not GerardM has a veto, I don't know), then it would possibly be a matter for the board.
I don't know what Gerard's take on the whole situation is, but I can really see no reason why the language committee should have any role at all in the decision to launch a Greek Wikiversity project. Certainly it is not within its mandate to judge the viability of projects _per se_.
There are two separate things here: 1) The identity of Wikiversity compared to other Wikimedia projects, especially Wikibooks 2) The creation of new Wikiversities. Let's not mix those issues.
I also think that the creation of a greek Wikiversity has nothing to do with the language committee. Greek *is* a language.
Regarding the identity: it would be good that some time after the creation of Wikiversity, it is being evaluated. Does it do what it was supposed to do? Should the mission/vision be altered after gaining experience? And for me personally also an important question: is MediaWiki the best way to work with Wikiversity or might Moodle be a better choice?
We don't have a Wikiversity in dutch, but I am still interested in having a clear definition what Wikiversity is supposed to do, before we might start (if at all).
I will try to make it tonight at IRC, but it is rather late.
Kind regards Peter van Londen
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