[Foundation-l] Follow up: Fan History joining the WMF family

Wed Dec 2 06:03:30 UTC 2009

Great analysis SJ.
By the way - since we're talking about working with other organisations
outside of Wikimedia Projects, there is another Strategic Planning taskforce
that people might be interested in weighing in on.
http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Alliances_and_Partnerships_Task_Force The
"expanding content" one has already been mentioned in this thread but the
"partnerships and alliances" is trying to discuss how the Wikimedia
projects/Foundation/community should interact with other projects.

Best,
-Liam [[witty lama]]

wittylama.com/blog
Peace, love & metadata

On Wed, Dec 2, 2009 at 4:49 PM, Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks for this repost, Laura.
>
> I don't know where 18 months comes from, but it is much much too long  :-)
>
>
> It might be more accurate to say that our project proposal process is
> broken, and we simply need to fix it.  The Meta process for requesting a
> new
> project is what I have in mind.   As philippe pointed out, the Expanding
> Content task force is meant to address the meta-topic of this thread.  The
> current (broken) process does in its way accomodate both new and adoptive
> projects -- projects are encouraged to link to demo sites or live
> communities in their proposal.
>
> Laura writes:
> > some changes need to be made:
> >
> > 1) Clear procedure for what happens step by step in making such a
> proposal.
> > Post proposal.  Contact people who support your position to vote in
> favor...
> > 2) Clear timeline of what happens and when so that people can plan
> >accordingly
> > 3) Expectations regarding exclusivity of proposal to the WMF during the
> > proposal process.  Can people propose it elsewhere or seek acquisition by
> > others while there is an open proposal on Strategy Wiki?
>
> Yes.  1 and 2 need to be defined, along with any criteria that should be
> met
> before starting on 1.  It is polite for the Foundation to let people know
> whether it is worth their time to draft the proposal.
> As for 3, I don't think anyone would ask for proposals to be exclusive.
> Similarly, it is polite for the proposer to let the WM community know
> whether they are serious, or about to pursue some other option instead.
>
>
> On Sun, Nov 29, 2009 at 5:09 PM, Laura Hale <laura at fanhistory.com> wrote:
>
> > The process broke down in the following places:
> > ...
> > 4.  No clear point where a proposal is considered dead, beyond silence.
> > 5.  Misleading steps in the proposal process that create misconceptions.
> > 6.  Connectivity problems between proposals on strategy and meta.
> > 7.  Incorrect assumptions regarding Wikipedia needing to apply to all new
> > projects.
> >
>
> Also good points.  7 is an ongoing discussion, but the other three points
> could be addressed with clear process.
>
>
>
> > I apologize for the earlier rambling and lack of clarity regarding what I
> > was attempting to accomplish with my post.
> >
>
> I found the background quite informative...
>
>
> Dan Rosenthal writes:
> > I'd toss in there "lack of realistic expectations from your project",
> especially as far as being financially compensated is concerned.
>
> This point, the copyright question, and the narrowness of project scope
> seem
> like the hardest ones to reconcile.  But that doesn't save us from
> addressing the good points made about fixing the proposal process.
> Wikimedians could respond quickly with "looks interesting, but a)
> individiual projects don't get dedicated paid staff [since 2002 :)],  b)
> you'll have to pursue a license migration in one of the following ways...,
> and c) you'd have to frame this as part of a larger-scope 'cultural
> history'
> wiki".
>
> As a pillar of the free culture community, it might also be useful for us
> to
> welcome such interest rather than frustrating it, offering an overview (as
> a
> community service) of the options for specialized free knowledge projects
> that want sustainable hosting/supoport/tool development.
>
>
> Mike.lifeguard writes:
> > I mean to say that since 2006, and perhaps even further back, there have
> > been no proposals which should have been approved. Why do we need a
> > process to handle something which, in essence, *doesn't happen*?
>
> I'm not sure what you mean.  There are lots of new interesting projects, in
> line with our mission, that require tools and distributed collaboration to
> replace proprietary but essential basic knowledge with free knowledge.  A
> number of them have had reasonable proposals made on Meta.  Among the
> projects that developed successfully independent of Wikimedia (most of
> which
> are nevertheless less often visited than, say, Wikispecies):
>   Wikikids, Rodovid + WeRelate, AboutUs, Open Library, Wikimapia +
> OpenStreetMap.
>
> Wikimedia as a community could significantly shift the amount of attention
> devoted to building these and other free-content reference works.  We need
> to decide whether we should.   (by the way, this doesn't have to be limited
> to starting new projects or adopting existing ones; we could find other
> ways
> to drive traffic and interested editors to fellow-traveller projects that
> meet our criteria for furthering our mission.  The part where closer
> collaboration becomes interesting is: It would be great to see wikikids
> projects in fr, de, es and nl (three independent projects!) develop
> interwiki links[1].  We could help ensure WeRelate's data is backed up and
> preserved for generations.  Wikimapia might be even more beautiful without
> its massive ads.)
>
> There's nothing wrong with us deciding that any particular Project isn't
> within Wikimedia's scope, but each of those decisions deserves due
> consideration.  (note that we could decide that a Project like an atlas is
> very much within our scope, but a specific proposed implementation isn't
> suitable.  Many current proposals got hung up on that distinction.)
>
> > I'd be far more interested in discussing ways we can critically evaluate
> > which of our current projects should remain in the Wikimedia movement,
> > and which should be asked to move outside that movement to continue
> > their development.
>
> Once we have a way to assess projects for their priority is in the grand
> scheme of empowering people to develop and share free educational
> knowledge,
> we can assess current Projects and implementations as well.  Even our
> lowest-traffic projects such as wikiversity and wikisource tend to be among
> the most popular sites in their domain.
>
> SJ
>
> [1] the german grundschul wiki is the smallest, but has the best main page
> welcome that others could learn from:
> "
> * Are you an expert in gerbils?
> * Do you know all about airplanes?
> * Do you know why penguins and polar bears never meet?
>
> Then you will fit right in! Join now!
> "
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