[Foundation-l] RFC: A Wikipedia/etc.-like Web Directory (e.g: dmoz.org, the old dir.yahoo.com , etc)

[Samuel Klein]

On Wed, Oct 28, 2009 at 6:23 PM, David Goodman <dgoodmanny at gmail.com> wrote:

> We can do it right.
> We can do it free of advertising. We can do it verified. We can do it
> multi-national. We can do it in a single large open community. We can
> do it without the uncertainty of  city wikis, with their small
> contributor base.
>

These are all excellent reasons to start new Wikimedia projects.


> We can use it not just for additional material, but to relieve some of
> the disputes on Wikipedia about the inclusion of local information
> such as bus routes and local dignitaries. It can satisfy the
> inclusionists, because the material will be included. it will satisfy
> the deletionists, because it won't be included in the primary layer.
> It will help newcomers, because it will give them easy things to write
> about.
>

The latter is also valuable.  Having young projects that meaningfully
contribute to the sum of all knowledge in your language is helpful; perhaps
we should actively send newbies to such projects to get their feet wet.


> There is a considerable hostility among many Wikipedia people with
> respect to Wikia, partly for historical/interpersonal  reasons, and
> partly because of their extreme contamination with advertisements, and
> the almost total lack of standards of verifiability.
>

For my part, I'm relieved that there is a free-content place where anyone
can start a wiki about anything - which also relieves many notability
disputes.  One value to having Wikias on topics not currently considered
notable or in scope for WM projects is that, if a new project is formed or
standards change, that body of existing work can be copied over (and
verified and cited) to seed it.


I agree it will take some planning: one basic question which you
> allude to  is whether it is meant as Wikipedia Local, or to include
> hobbyist material as well.
>
> And perhaps it will be more used than some of the other splits.
>

We are REALLY HARSH on our smaller projects.  New project topics are not
'splits'.  They are invitations to gather more and different kinds of
knowledge in a scalable way.   Even Wikispecies, which most people
acknowledge has a lot to learn from the shiny multimillion-dollar
pro-curated Encyclopedia of Life, gets 300,000 hits a day, more than its
more professional cousin.

So: people use Wikimedia sites a lot.  Our brand means something, as does
our comprenehsive and meaningful use of internal links.  We are a tremendous
force for dissemination of knowledge, and should be aware of that - adding a
new sphere of knowledge to the scope of what the Projects together try to
accomplish has implications for millions of future readers.

SJ