[Foundation-l] Merge wikis

[Arlen Beiler]

I like a lot of what has been said, and would like to add my part.

Milos Rancic wrote:

There are two types of Wikimedia projects: those which could be
> reasonably treated as extensions of Wikipedia and those which couldn't
> be. For example, Wiktionary (as it is presently) and Wikibooks are
> obvious extensions of Wikipedia: If you need shorter definitions, more
> philological than encyclopedic, you would put that in the form of
> dictionary. If you need to write in depth about some topic, you would
> use the form of book.


While I agree that Wiktionary looks like it would be an extension of
Wikipedia, it would definitely need it's own namespace. I don't have any
experience on it, so I don't know what they're opinion is. As for Wikibooks,
it would never work. They are two different projects entirely. You can't
write in-depth on a topic without leaving an encyclopedic form of writing
and that would never work on Wikipedia.

Wikisource isn't going to merge for obvious reasons, just in case anyone is
still wondering. Nor is Wikiversity, since Wikipedia would go up in smoke.
WikiQuotes hardly sounds like an encyclopedia. Wikinews is too dynamic and
has it's own set of problems to merge easily. It could be done though if
given it's own namespace, and Wikipedia would definitely benefit. There are
logistical problems though that would have to be dealt with. I'm not even
sure why there is a WikiSpecies, though I have hardly looked at it.

I like the sound of "WikiCommons", it makes it sound as important as the
others while still keeping the Common idea.

On Wed, Jul 6, 2011 at 12:55 PM, Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 8:39 AM, Alec Conroy <alecmconroy at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Mon, Jul 4, 2011 at 3:57 PM, Juergen Fenn <juergen.fenn at gmx.de>
> wrote:
> >>
> >> Am 02.07.11 14:17 schrieb Alec Conroy:
> >>> There's an even bigger opportunity here--
> >>> Make a brand new brand name that captures the ideology better than
> >>> Wikipedia-Mediawiki-Wikimedia.
> >
> > Wikipedia will always be Wikipedia-- but what about Wikimedia??   What
> > does its brand say beyond "We host Wikipedia and stuff like it"
> > Now compare that with the magnitude of our vision of a world where
> > everyone has access to all the world's knowledge and information.
> > This is an awesome vision, a "Moonshot" kind of vision.    Are we sure
> > we just want to call it "The movement and foundation associated with
> > Wikipedia"?
>
> A rebranding like this could be launched in tandem with the next
> significant project launch or makeover.
>
> > The Wikimedia Foundation is about more than just
> > Wikipedia, and "The Wikimedia Movement" is about _way_ more than just
> > Wikipedia.    Unless we really think Wikimedia is the best name, it's
> > never too late to switch.   The general public doesn't know Wikimedia
> > exists, they just call it "Wikipedia".   We do so much more than just
> > that, so we're ripe for a brand extension.
>
> Right.
>
> S.
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>