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

[Sage Ross]

On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 3:15 PM, Jon Davis <wiki at konsoletek.com> wrote:
> I don't think that the WMF "acquiring" FanHistory would make them a
> competitor with Wikia, after all, Meta already has a propsosal for a
> "Wikitainment" ( http://wmf4.me/EFf2D ) which goes to show that the WMF
> community wants something like this.

If there are projects that are potentially in the scope of both the
WMF and Wikia, how are they not in competition (for mind-share and for
userbase)?  Obviously in many respects, the relationship between WMF
and Wikia is mutually beneficial, particularly in terms of building
interoperable free software and freely licensed cultural works.  But
Wikia benefits much more from the existence of WMF projects than
vice-versa, and Wikia has tried aggressively to become the
(ad-bearing) host for wikis on the periphery of Wikimedia's scope.

I see part of Wikimedia's mission (as part of the free culture
movement) as helping to give people sense of ownership in their
culture(s), as something they participate in versue something they
merely consume.  And there is some attenuation of that ownership when
collaborative projects take place in highly commercialized contexts;
there is a sense that, rather than working solely for the fun of it
and for the benefit of other members of your society, you are working
for the financial benefit of a company.  Many people are fine with
that, but as the WMF community reactions to the possibility of ads has
shown in the past, some are not fine with that.  So I think the more
free culture that takes place outside of commercial contexts, the more
successful it will be in the long run.

-Sage