[Foundation-l] Following the conventions: seperating Wikisource

[Dovi Jacobs]

Hi. The model that Wikisource follows here is similar to Wikiversity:

Just as at Wikiversity, the Wikisource "incubator" is within Wikisource itself. We consider this to be a much more supportive (and better monitored) environment for new languages (rather than the generic incubator.wikimedia.org) for a number of reasons. When such languages are ready, they can then recieve their own subdomains. Until then, they always have a proper place to build their content.

In fact, my personal suggestion is that new test languages for all existing Wikimedia projects (Wikipedia, Wikibooks, etc.) should be hosted by those projects themselves, rather than at a generic incubator. The Wikiversity/Wikisource model works very nicely indeed, providing a closer sense of a project-wide environment for new test-languages, with a common logo and framework for parallel new languages in the project, while the generic incubator is rather cold and unfriendly (take a look at its main page). There is no way that a single separate wiki for all new languages in all projects at once can provide proper guidance, supervision, and monitoring. Perhaps the incubator would be better left for testing entirely new Wikimedia projects.

As for the Wikisource portal, because it is at wikisource.org rather than on Meta, you will find that it is much better supported than the portals for other Wikimedia projects, which are often out-of-date ("out-of-site" >> "out-of-mind"), and often have aesthetic or other problems that take longer to fix. People go to Wikisource and make direct suggestions for Portal updates right there at the talk page, and Wikisource admins take care of things immediately because they are always around at the wiki. Here too, this may be a better model than the convention for other projects.

Dovi Jacobs

       
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