[Foundation-l] strategy.wikimedia.org soft-launch

[Eugene Eric Kim]

Hi Brian,

On Mon, Jul 27, 2009 at 1:02 PM, Brian<Brian.Mingus at colorado.edu> wrote:
> No I hadn't, thank you.

See also my response:

http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-July/053355.html

> It doesn't cover the most important case in my mind: meta is where people
> actually are! A new wiki is not a magic recipe for an insta-community and
> its hard to guarantee that everyone who would be interested in the content
> there will end up seeing it.

I totally agree that a new Wiki is not a magic recipe for
insta-community. I also realize there's a barrier in getting existing
community members to shift to another Wiki, but there's also a barrier
to engaging those who are not already participating in Meta. Frankly,
I think the latter barrier is higher.

This is a meta-issue for Wikis in general. One of the values of Wikis
is that they are One Big Space. Think back to my analogy of physical
space. When you fragment that space, you lose some of that value.
Sometimes, it's necessary, but when is not always clear. I think there
are ways to mitigate this through the tools themselves -- it's
something we've discussed off-and-on throughout the years in the
larger Wiki community. In the meantime, I think the solution is
careful reflection, but not to the point of paralysis. Think about it,
try it, learn from it.

This, by the way, is a good summary of my philosophy about process in
general. :-)

=Eugene

-- 
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Eugene Eric Kim ................................ http://xri.net/=eekim
Blue Oxen Associates ........................ http://www.blueoxen.com/
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