[Foundation-l] Incubator Wiki for New Wikimedia Projects

[Robert Scott Horning]

Ray Saintonge wrote:

> Anthony DiPierro wrote:
>
>> I brought that up earlier, and I'm really not sure what to make of it,
>>
>> because Wikipedia certainly shouldn't be made a part of Wikibooks.  I
>> can think of two possible reasons:
>>
>> 1) Wikibooks is for textbooks, and this should be narrowly construed
>> to mean classical textbooks, not to include any learning resources
>> such as encyclopedias.
>>
>> 2) Wikipedia is too big for Wikibooks (combined perhaps with the fact
>> that Mediawiki is not sophisticated enough to handle both of them
>> under a single project).
>
> Having Wikibooks absorb Wikipedia sounds like some kind of reverse 
> takeover.  It doesn't make sense.
>
> Ec

I'm sorry I brought it up in the first place.  I was trying to be a 
little bit humorus about the fact that if Wikipedia didn't exist yet, 
that it would be a part of Wikibooks.  I am not advocating that 
Wikibooks take over Wikipedia at all.  I was also trying to point out 
that just because Wikijunior happens to be a part of Wikibooks at the 
moment because it is a book doesn't mean that it belongs there because 
it meets the strict criteria for being there, and that you could point 
to other projects like Wikipedia that could technically belong except 
for the fact that it is a very healthy project on its own and doesn't 
need the resources to belong there.

Which brings back to the original point.  Should Wikibooks be the 
Wikimedia incubator project instead?  I know I've hammered this point to 
the nth degree, but it seems like that is where the discussion always 
seems to return.  The Wikibooks community doesn't necessarily mind the 
responsibility, but it seems as though many people elsewhere in the 
Wikimedia community don't want that to happen.  Wikijunior is a clear 
example of how Wikibooks is being used as an incubator for new project 
ideas.  The incubator project as it has been discussed so far doesn't 
exist and would need to organize admins and policies to get started. 
 Wikibooks is available right now and has that internal support to deal 
with projects like Wikijunior, and frankly almost everything else on the 
new project proposal page with just a few exceptions.

If concensus is to not use Wikibooks as the incubator project, fine, 
let's get rid of things like Wikiversity and Wikijunior from Wikibooks. 
 I'm just saying that we need to be consistant here on overall policies. 
 I don't understand why this is such a difficult concept to explain.

-- 
Robert Scott Horning