[Foundation-l] alternatives

[Robert Scott Horning]

Peter van Londen wrote:

>Some minor changes:
>1) Not set-up a different website, but Fanpedia would be a wiki, sister
>project of Wikipedia, Wikiquote and so on, it will also benefit from a high
>google-ranking as have all wikimedia projects.
>2) Fair use images: I hope not; I certainly hope that we get the fair use
>matter solved for all wikimedia projects.
>3) Advertisements on fanpedia will subsidize all other projects (there will
>be a lot of trafic diverted to Fanpedia, so money will flow).
>
>The thing is that a lot of people work on the fancruft, imho
>non-encyclopedian, part of Wikipedia and that is OK. Prison Break is one of
>the most visited articles on dutch Wikipedia. Most nl-Wikipedians are uneasy
>with this kind of articles, which evoluate to a encyclopedia inside the
>wikipedia in itself, and would be happy to move them to a different project.
>
>I think you what you are saying is that you are afraid that the sysops of
>this project would not be able to manage the project enough, as it will
>certainly be people which might have a different view on wikimedia ideals?
>
>This proposal will certainly help solve the money-problems, with an
>acceptable compromise for adds on one of the Wikimedia projects.
>
>Kind regards
>Londenp
>  
>
This sounds very similar to Wikicities/Wikia.  Do you care to elaborate 
how this would be any different (other than direct control by the WMF)?

Fan websites are very common, indeed could be called a "killer app" for 
Wikia.  Note especially Memory Alpha and the Stargate Wikias that fit in 
particularly with what you are saying here with fansites, in addition to 
explicit advertising that appears.  Fair use images have been decided by 
each Wikia community independently.

Now what the exact relationship bewteen Wikia and WMF is right now, I'm 
not entirely sure.  Two (is it three?) former members of the WMF board 
of trustees are still involved with Wikia, and there was some talk once 
upon a time that Wikia would help sponsor the WMF through some sort of 
cash contributions.  I havn't seen anything explicitly mentioned in 
fundraisers about this, however, or in any of the currently published 
financial reports.  There are several participants on this mailing list 
that could certainly elaborate on this point authoritatively.  I do know 
there is no legal relationship between Wikia and the WMF at the moment.

Quite a bit of material from Wikibooks has been transwikied to Wikia 
projects where, based on sentiment within the Wikibooks community, it 
was felt that it was most appropriate to those projects.  As a general 
principle, I try to encourage this action only between Wikimedia 
projects, but there are some obvious holes in Wikimedia project coverage 
that keeps this from being a perfect fit with information that otherwise 
would be a general part of the Wikimedia charter.  "Fancruft", as you 
have tried to suggest, certainly is one of these areas.

-- 
Robert Scott Horning