[Foundation-l] Re: Positive discrimination related to smaller communities and projects

[Ilya Haykinson]

For what it's worth, (and partially as an aside) I think everyone who
thinks that structured data, or complex applications and the wiki
paradigm don't mix should go to www.jot.com and request a beta. Those
folks managed to build a pretty awesome looking wiki platform that
supports applications developed in a certain wiki-script, and
structured data storage.

-ilya


On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 07:16:15 +0200, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I'd like to say that indeed, I find GerardM proactive approach very
> positive.
> Ie "Do not give up, get your community to grow and
>  > find out what you really need. And work at it."
> 
> Ant
> 
> GerardM a écrit:
> > Hoi,
> > I think the worst we can do is fork. It will mean that we will not
> > benefit from the economies of scale that the Wikimedia Foundation
> > offers. These benefits are huge, with a project that is part of the
> > larger community, you will be known and otherwise you have to struggle
> > to get the same "facetime". You will be just another project
> > struggling to get recognition. You will have to find programmers, you
> > will have to find hardware, you will have to do all the hard work that
> > is already done really well.
> >
> > Take me as an example, I did not give up on Wiktionary, I worked hard
> > to get an idea of what we should have (by putting in a lot of work) I
> > got some community going and learned that we need one database to rule
> > them all .. :) I discussed this and learned about Wikidata. This is
> > the necessary building block for the "ultimate wiktionary". I found
> > someone to program it, I found someone to pay the programmer and, the
> > development has started. Wikispecies will benefit from this if we get
> > enough traction (read also but not only money) to make this happen. I
> > have uploaded some 3000 soundfiles and now the upload screen is
> > uploaded to such an extend that I can upload a Dutch pronunciation in
> > a fraction of the time.
> >
> > My point to you is: Do not give up, get your community to grow and
> > find out what you really need. And work at it. My point to the list in
> > general is, there are many things that need doing We need resources to
> > make the things happen to grow the projects and communities other than
> > Wikipedia. When we agree to have all these projects and communities,
> > we have to invest in their well being. It is a defeat of who we are
> > when we get a fork because of unresponsiveness. It is certainly a pity
> > when we CAN hire programmers to create the desperately needed
> > functionality.
> >
> > An example: It is easier to upload Dutch, English, German soundfiles
> > than Farsi soundfiles I can do easily 10 times more words in the same
> > time. It upsets me that a soundfile obscures text in Hebrew, Arabic or
> > Farsi because of this stupid symbol that is seen because Commons is
> > seen as an external resource.
> >
> > I want to have dia shows when we have too many pictures for a subject.
> > I have ideas about "language immersion training" it needs some
> > software to allow for different target languages. Those are only my
> > ideas.... there are so many even better idea's....
> >
> > We can get money for functionality, we can get money for servers. We
> > just have to ask. That is why the Foundation can be such a powerfull
> > organisation. It can be an enabler. That is in my opinion what we have
> > done brilliantly, given the outrageous success that Wikipedia is. We
> > just have to work hard on making the other projects a success too.
> >
> > Define projects, define functionality, get a community interested in
> > change find money, find programmers. And let's make things even
> > better..
> >
> > One thing you cannot do is expect others to do the work for you. If
> > you cannot do the programming, find someone who can and who will. If
> > you do not have the money find someone who does.  If you cannot define
> > your needs, find someone who can because without a well defined need
> > you are snookered and, on your own it will be only worse,
> >
> > Thanks,
> >     GerardM
> >
> >
> > On Mon, 28 Mar 2005 06:35:24 -0800, Amgine <amgine at saewyc.net> wrote:
> >
> >>In wikinews there has been an ongoing discussion regarding the
> >>unresponsiveness of the mediawiki team to issues considered critical to
> >>the project. This has now become a discussion regarding a fork of both
> >>hardware and software, and contributors are actively working toward
> >>doing so. I don't think this is the best choice, but it is beginning to
> >>look like the only choice.
> >>
> >>Amgine
> >>_______________________________________________
> >>foundation-l mailing list
> >>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> >>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >>
> >
> 
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