[Foundation-l] New project proposal - Wikibuilder

[Christiaan Briggs]

That's a good summary of the details Daniel. I think the operative word 
for 'Wikilabs' is "recognition."

Put is this way: the problem with starting, say, [[Wikibuilder]] off as 
a Wikibook is one, for technical reasons, but two, because there is no 
natural base of editors who are builders and architects, etc (compared 
to programmers and scientists, etc.). To have [[Wikibuilder]] being 
developed in its early stages under "Wikilabs" would allow for 'instant 
recognition of potential,' whereas under Wikibooks the potential isn't 
so obvious (especially to designers and builders who just happen across 
the site). A "Wikilabs" [[Wikibuilder]] project is a very easy concept 
to grasp and would be something a lot of people would be willing to get 
their teeth into. A [[Wikibuilder]] under Wikibooks is a nice idea... 
hope it does well, kinda thing.

Christiaan

P.S. As a draughtsperson, the potential of [[Wikibuilder]] is obvious 
to me. I spend my entire day referring to books and more experienced 
people for the things I design and draw. To be able to refer to an 
entire world would be amazing. I can only imagine what people who 
really _need_ such knowledge would do with it.

On 21 Jan 2005, at 5:24 am, Sj wrote:

> On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 21:38:31 -0800 (PST), Daniel Mayer
> <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> --- Sj <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Why not have a standalone "wikilabs" project for new potential
>>> wikimedia projects?
>>
>> Because Wikimedia is not a free hosting service for just any wiki 
>> idea and
>> Wikicities already exists to fill that role. Concentrating 
>> development energy
>> into our existing projects and staying on mission are more important 
>> than
>> budding-off new projects to the degree suggested,
>
> Why not have a standalone "wikilabs" project for new potential
> Wikimedia projects with recognised potential and good plans, which fit
> well into our mission of providing a free reference source?
>
> I see this as a way to reduce budding-off, not to increase it.  This
> would provide a place for the initial growth of new projects before
> deciding certain difficult issues such as 1) how they are licensed, 2)
> what standards they will use for naming, namespaces, and
> classification, 3) how they will be internationalised.  It would allow
> for more structured discussion of the goals and viability of new
> projects before they were stamped with a domain-level seal of
> approval.
>
> 0) Disclaimers about the alpha/beta nature of the projects could be
> explained once for the entire site.
> 1a) Wikilabs could be PD, containing only links to other CC/GFDL
> content that would be in the project proper, making transition to a
> different license easy.
> 1b) Discussions about how to license contributions, and how to comply
> explicitly with licenses or related content, would be important for
> each project.  Reaching consensus on these matters could be expected
> before a project forged off on its own (cf. Wikicommons, Wikispecies,
> Wikinews).  Legal scholars could visit this single site to weigh in on
> these related discussions; discussions about copyright would not die
> simply because those interested in a particular new project did not
> have the right expertise.
> 2) Discussion of standardization, how to comply with / interact with /
> reference existing standards, and citation, would also be important
> for each project.  Comparisons to existing reference works on related
> subjects, existing projects with similar goals, and existing
> classification methods, could likewise be expected before a project
> took on its own domain (cf. Wikispecies, Wikipeople*, Wikibuilder*).
> 3) Wikilabs could be like meta, multilingual on a single wiki, with
> unified discussion of which projects should be how multilingual when.
> Initial interest in a new project is often focused in one or two
> languages, and the first hundred people interested in the project are
> not necessarily interested in such decisions (cf. Wikisource,
> Wikispecies, 911-wiki)
>
>>> Wikilabs could also be a good initial test site for new software 
>>> patches
>>> and upgrades, since everything on it will explicitly be in beta.
>>
>> That is what test.wikipedia.org and any number of other 
>> MediaWiki-based sites
>> that the developers already use.
>
> ...but would soon be larger than any of these sites, and would
> certainly have a larger active body of regular users whose use might
> trigger sneaky new bugs.
>
>> could this be done within an existing Wikimedia project?
>
> I think it makes conceptual sense to have a separate wikilab for
> promising new projects, inasmuch as it makes conceptual sense to
> separate any of the Wikimedia projects from one another.  However, in
> the absence of a wikilab, Meta seems the best place to expand project
> drafts and start creating initial policy and content.
>
> -- 
> +sj+
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