[Foundation-l] Closing inactive Wikinewses

[Robert Scott Horning]

magiske prosesser wrote:

>On my local Wikipedia (the no: Norwegian) I have 
>previously on a couple of occasions raised issues 
>regarding local sister projects only to be told in no 
>uncertain terms that "this is Wikipedia. Matters relating 
>to sister projects should be discussed at meta." Of 
>course, that's not very helpful as very few local 
>contributors read meta. Seeing as this reveals a void when 
>it comes to adequate forums for local Wikimedia projects 
>coordination, I think an effort, perhaps from these parts 
>of the woods, to assist local chapters in finding 
>constructive solutions to this problem might be valuable. 
>Maybe a suggestion from "someone on high" to allow for the 
>creation of local inter-project village punp solutions 
>would spark more involvement in these projects.
>
>Halvor  (User:meco)
>  
>
I will say that even with English langauge projects, Meta doesn't always 
offer the best possible solution for significant announcements that need 
to be made across multiple projects.  This was a very unhelpful 
sentiment that Meta is the exclusive place to discuss projects other 
than Wikipedia, particularly when there are inter-project issues that 
need to be brought up.

I have in the past, and I anticipate that in the future I will also do 
this, sent postings on the various "Village Pumps" (Scriptorium, Staff 
Lounge, etc.) of English language projects when I felt some significant 
input was needed by regular users of various projects.  In particular 
that I've dealt with, some semi-recent activity relating between 
Wikisource and Wikibooks has occured, particularly when there were some 
significant number of pages being transwikied or to help define the 
boudaries between the two projects.

Where Meta tends to excell is when there is some signifcant 
organizational activity that needs to take place that goes beyond the 
scope of a particular sister project.  In this case, an annoucement on 
the village pump on Wikipedia making a notice about such activity would 
be reasonable, but requesting that a follow-up and subsequent 
discussions take place on Meta, noting the specific page on Meta where 
that is taking place.  The discussions about Wikiversity, for example, 
proved to be particularly well suited for Meta rather than being on 
Wikipedia or Wikibooks.

I still fail to see how a request on a Wikipedia Village Pump requesting 
interested parties to keep a particular language edition of Wikinews, 
for example, is out of place.

BTW, as far as a "Meta" village pump for a particular language is 
concerned, it would be reasonable to begin one on Meta if one doesn't 
already exist.  My experience with the Meta Babel (English) page, 
however, is that it is very seldom visited for much of anything, and 
even then it is usually regarding issues that are about the Meta wiki 
itself rather than issues that involve multiple projects.  That isn't to 
say it couldn't be used more, but from experience it is seldom 
frequented that much.

-- 
Robert Scott Horning