[Foundation-l] Proposing New Projects (was Proposal for a newproject: Wikisomething)

[Poe, Marshall]

Thanks very much, Robert, for your good comments. They are very apt. 

I was the proposer of Wikimemory, and you are right about my experience, and I suspect those of other proposers.  While I would not say that comments on Foundation-l were exactly hostile, they were not for the most part friendly, supportive, encouraging, numerous, or helpful.  A one line reply like "I think this project should be on wikicities" is really not very satisfying. I, for one, would like an explanation of the various POVs shared.  I tried to offer such explanations, at length, and with a certain amount of reflection and thought.  With one or two exceptions, I rec'd nothing of a similar character.  I'm new to Wikimedia, but my experience has made me wonder just how serious the "new projects" initiative is.  This is a shame, because, as you say, well-meaning people with possibly good ideas are being neglected or even frightened away.  In the end, if you want to attract serious people, you have to be serious.

The fashion in which new projects are vetted at Wikimeida is unprofessional. I mean this with no disrespect. Perhaps it is impossible for an organization such as Wikimedia to be held to such a high standard.  Wikimedia does many things very well (I'm a huge fan of Wikipedia).  But professionalism just might not be in the cards, and perhaps it shouldn't be.  Critics (and I guess I'm one of them) will say that Wikimedia's new proposals initiative fails exactly because it lacks the standard incentives and disincentives built into any real business, that is, a strong devotion to the mission, strong incentives to pursue said mission, and stong dissincentives against unprofessional behavior.  In a successful enterprise, if you don't do your job well, there are consequences.  In this aspect of Wikimedia, there seem to be none.  And perhaps there can be none, because we are all uncompensated volunteers.  Again, critics will say that this once again demonstrates that undisciplined organizations just don't perform very well.  When everybody is responsible, nobody is responsible.

The question, I guess, is this: can people act professionally when they have no motivation other than that they should?  My experience suggests the answer is no, at least in this narrow instance.

I'm withdrawing Wikimemory from consideration as a new project, and am pursuing othere means of realizing it (see memoirbank.com).  I believe in it, and hope I can find others who do to.  Perhaps someday we can begin discussion of something like Wikimemory again, after the idea has matured.  I would welcome that.  

I will, of course, continue to be a huge fan of Wikimedia, and will participate in this and other discussions of its future.  Wikimedia can become something truely great, and I'd like to help.  It's up to us.

Good luck with everything.

Best, Marshall Poe

-----Original Message-----
From: foundation-l-bounces at wikimedia.org on behalf of Robert Scott Horning
Sent: Fri 9/23/2005 6:43 PM
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
Subject: [Foundation-l] Proposing New Projects (was Proposal for a newproject: Wikisomething)
 
Elisabeth Bauer wrote:

> I want to propose a new idea for a new project: Wikisomething. 
> Wikisomething is dedicated to contain multilingual somethings of all 
> different sorts, therefore it spares us the need to found any new 
> different projects for speficic things. Moreover, we could also 
> integrate our current projects into Wikisomething.
>
> cordially,
> Elian

I know this was in jest, but I would like to know if people on this 
mailing are fed up with all of these sort of proposals or if they need 
to be encouraged more.  I've been vocal about this in the past, but my 
impression is that no new major project will ever be started.  Period. 
 If you take a look at the "No" votes for Wikiversity, for example

(see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikiversity/Vote )

the #1 reason I find credible is that there are some technical issues 
that seem to be preventing new projects from being started.  What are 
those incredible technical issues that are going to force any new 
project from starting for more than a year from now?  Is there any 
reason at all to even encourage anybody to start a new project of any 
kind?  Is a general concensus that new proposals should not even be 
brought up on Foundation-l?

I do believe that at the very least there needs to be a few more steps 
in the development process of a new project proposal before it gets to 
Foundation-l.  I've been a regular contributor to this mailing list now 
for close to a year, and I've seen a dozen or so new project proposals 
get posted, most by very well-meaning people and some of them are very 
well thought out.  There are some proposals that are "not ready for 
prime-time" and perhaps they should be more thought out before they come 
up here.  For most new project ideas, Foundation-l is the very last 
place that anything will be heard about the idea, not the first.

Another related issue is more along the lines of how to publicize the 
kernel of an idea that may be useful but needs a bit more work, such as 
the Wikimemory proposal that has been debated recently.  Requesting help 
for such proposals on this mailing list is throwing the idea before a 
very hostile audience, perhaps unwittingly and certainly without the 
knowledge of new Wikimedia users who happen to come across this mailing 
list as suggested by the New Project Policy.  Perhaps instead of 
announcing the formal new project proposal here, there should be some 
development effort at some Wikiproject or some other sub-community of 
Wikimedia users that are much more receptive of the idea, and can give 
some depth to the idea before it comes here.

At the very least, if there is to be a moritorium on new sister 
projects, please make that official policy on the part of the Wikimedia 
Foundation Board and get that stated on the New Project page, and 
perhaps even on the front page of Meta as well.  On the other hand, if 
the board does intend to allow some new projects to be started if they 
are well thought out and have a support community behind them, there 
should be an official policy to silence the critics who seem to speak in 
a semi-official capacity on behalf of the board (even though I know they 
are not board members).  

If there are genuine technical issues that need to be addressed so that 
starting en.wikiversity.org is somehow harder than to.wikibooks.org, I 
would like to know what those issues are that developers seem to be 
screaming about.  Get technical and don't sugar coat it either, and if 
possible give hard examples.  If the concern is purely social and 
getting the new project community organized, that may be a legitimate 
concern.  I don't think it is in as many cases as the critics seems to 
believe it may be, and most new projects tend to recruit more people 
than would normally be participating with Wikipedia alone, so I don't 
think it necessarily bleeds other projects dry from volunteers.  This is 
also an issue I would be more than willing to debate as well.

-- 
Robert Scott Horning


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