[Foundation-l] Criteria for the closure of projects.
Brian McNeil
brian.mcneil at wikinewsie.org
Fri Apr 11 13:27:30 UTC 2008
Gerard,
What you say in the below message is reasonable. Yet, is it not also
reasonable to infer that your earlier messages have been poorly formulated?
First and foremost, they have been construed by several list contributors as
an intent to see projects shut down. Secondly, you've failed to dispel this
belief to the extent that you felt resorting to "shouting" was appropriate.
My comment added nothing to the discussion at hand, nor was it meant to.
Thus, I was surprised to get any response to me expressing amusement. Apart
from being an expression of amusement, it was a gut reaction to seeing what
I consider one of the cornerstones of constructive Internet discussion
thrown up. I've shouted in the past month or so, I'll own up to that. I felt
I was justified when about six hours away from my computer saw well over a
hundred messages hit this mailing list. However, anyone who doesn't have at
least a passing familiarity with RFC 1855 should read it stat. Were it up to
me people would not be allowed on the Internet without passing an
"Information superhighway driving test" and that would be a part of it, but
here I digress.
You need to address the concern that has been raised. You may call the
guidelines you would like to see "objective", you may have no intention of
seeing any project closed as a result of their introduction, but you will
not be alone in interpreting and applying them. Could you be introducing
something that could be "misused" according to how you intend to see things
progressed? Could someone else come along after you and shut something down
by interpreting your objective guidelines in a way you had not foreseen? If
so, then the guidelines still need work.
Brian McNeil
-----Original Message-----
From: foundation-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org
[mailto:foundation-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Gerard
Meijssen
Sent: 11 April 2008 15:04
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Criteria for the closure of projects.
Hoi,
It is no way to prevail if you ask me, it is only silly. To me it means that
the thread is not know because otherwise it would be known that this same
argument has been rehashed several times. Writing in upper case is
understood as shouting and that is exactly what you do when you are
frustrated. So it is completely appropriate in this situation as it
expresses profoundly and effectively my sentiments.
Again, this proposal is about introducing some objective criteria in stead
of the current situation where anything goes. Again, this proposal is NOT to
close any projects down. I would personally only consider the closure of
projects when no activity exist for quite some time.
Thanks,
GerardM
On Fri, Apr 11, 2008 at 2:54 PM, Brian McNeil <brian.mcneil at wikinewsie.org>
wrote:
> I can't remember the last time I saw 1855 used to prevail in an argument.
> However, it never fails to raise a smile when someone cites an RFC.
> Reminds
> me of the decades I spent on Usenet. :)
>
>
> Brian McNeil
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: foundation-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org
> [mailto:foundation-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Chad
> Sent: 11 April 2008 14:38
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Criteria for the closure of projects.
>
> Please turn off Caps when posting. This has been internet
> standard since 1995[1]
>
> -Chad
>
> [1] http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1855#page-4
>
> On Fri, Apr 11, 2008 at 8:29 AM, Gerard Meijssen
> <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hoi.
> > I DO NOT PROPOSE TO CLOSE ANY PROJECT
> >
> > What I propose is to have at least some objective criteria.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Gerard
> >
> > On Fri, Apr 11, 2008 at 1:28 PM, Yaroslav M. Blanter <putevod at mccme.ru>
> > wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > > I am not exactly sure why everybody really supports this proposal. I
> can
> > > only say that if it is accepted most of the minor wikipedias which
> are
> > > active on a level of several native speaker contributions per month,
> will
> > > be closed. In this case, I will be the first one to encourage them
> leaving
> > > WMF and migrating to some more friendly server. As an example, I used
> to
> > > be a temporary admin in Lak Wikipedia, which has between 30 and 40
> > > articles, and I am continuing to monitor the project. There are
> regular
> > > contributions from native speakers, but they will probably never
> localize
> > > 100% messages since nobody has ever heard of betawiki, and people are
> only
> > > interested in editing pages. There is no chance it will reach 1000
> > > articles in two years, as it has been suggested. I think it is very
> > > typical of a project open BEFORE the new rules of the language
> > > subcommittee were established. If you guys want a fork - welcome, go
> on.
> > >
> > > Cheers,
> > > Yaroslav
> > >
> > > >> > - A project should have at least 1000 articles. When there
> is
> > > >> nothing
> > > >> > to see what is the point ?
> > > >>
> > > >>
> > > >> It can take a long time for a new project to reach this goal. If
> we
> > > >> assume that a self-sustaining wiki project can grow exponentially
> (at
> > > >> least at first), the first couple hundred or thousand articles
> can
> > > >> take a long time. After this point, however, more articles will
> > > >> attract more editors, which in turn will produce more articles,
> ad
> > > >> infinitum.
> > > >>
> > > >> I would prefer to see a condition which is based on annual
> growth.
> > > >> Active editing membership and number of articles should increase
> every
> > > >> year by a certain percentage until the project reaches a certain
> > > >> stable size. For very large projects, such as en.wikipedia, it's
> > > >> unreasonable to expect continued growth at a constant rate, so we
> need
> > > >> to include cut-offs where we don't expect a project to be growing
> at a
> > > >> constant rate anymore. Requiring growth in active membership can
> help
> > > >> to reduce bot-generated projects like Volapuk which has article
> growth
> > > >> but no new members.
> > > >>
> > > >> 10% article growth per year (which is 100 articles if your
> project
> has
> > > >> 1000) is not an unreasonable requirement. 5% growth in active
> editors
> > > >> (1 new editor for a project that already has 20) would not be an
> > > >> unreasonable lower-limit either. Projects which can't meet even
> these
> > > >> modest requirements probably don't have a critical mass to
> continue
> > > >> growth and development.
> > > >
> > > > Requiring projects to have 1000 articles in a fundamentally flawed
> > > > proposal, since all projects start out with no articles, so all
> > > > projects would be immeadiately closed. If you're going to have such
> a
> > > > requirement, it would have to only come into force after X years,
> or
> > > > something, but then you have issues with when and how to reopen it,
> > > > and when to reclose it if it still doesn't work.
> > > >
> > > > Requiring a certain growth rate sounds good. I think the cut-off
> point
> > > > should be quite low (1000 articles, say). I'm not sure what a good
> > > > rate would be for that first 1000 articles. Does anyone have
> > > > statistics for how existing projects grew at the beginning? It the
> > > > growth exponential at the beginning? I would expect not, since you
> > > > probably get rapid growth during the first couple of months (for a
> > > > Wikipedia: articles on general topics, geographical articles on the
> > > > area that speaks that language, etc) which then tapers off as the
> > > > novelty begins to wear off and then things follow an exponential
> curve
> > > > from then on. That's just a guess though, I'd love to see the
> actual
> > > > statistics if anyone has collated them.
> > > >
> > > > _______________________________________________
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> > >
> > >
> > >
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