[Foundation-l] A Wikimedia project has forked

[John Vandenberg]

On Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 2:25 AM, Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Sep 18, 2011 at 11:51 AM, Mike  Dupont
> <jamesmikedupont at googlemail.com> wrote:
>> On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 11:57 PM, MZMcBride <z at mzmcbride.com> wrote:
>>
>>> From Wikimedia's perspective, I think this is "one down, several hundred to go."
>>> Wikimedia has made it clear that its singular focus is the English Wikipedia.
>>> All other Wikipedias are peripheral; all other project types are abandoned.
>
>> oh that is alarming. can you tell me more?
>
> That is alarming because it is MZM's fear, but it does not represent
> the views of the Foundation.
>
> (MZM, would you mind finding a more accurate way to express your
> observations, hopes and frustrations on this subject?)
> ...
> All sister projects are able to pull in grant money if it is pursued.
> There are a variety of major foundations devoted to, or prioritizing,
> curation and access to {primary source materials, language and
> literacy materials, civic journalism,  free textbooks, open
> educational resources, biology and species data, oral histories, &c.}.
>  I would love to see us attract more of that sort of interest.  Even
> projects that we worry about and say "did not achieve critical mass"
> are often significant successes by the standards of existing
> grant-supported work elsewhere in the world.

Sam,

While it is nice to say that the other projects can request grants
from other organisations, MZM's point is that the WMF is focusing on
English Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons.

The strategic plan mentions Wikipedia an awful lot, and the WMF does
appear to be focusing on English Wikipedia and Commons.  Of course
WMF's investment in the mediawiki platform and innovation helps the
sister projects, but the sister projects continue to struggle because
they haven't had the same amount of support as Wikipedia over the
years.  The sun does not shine directly on them.  Have I told you
about the time that the WMF told a journo that it was OK to use
"Wikipedia" instead of "Wikisource" in an magazine article about a
Wikisource project?

I'm having a hard time remembering when a WMF led a project that had a
primary stated objective to meet a need of a sister project.  It would
be good to compile a list of any WMF projects of this kind.  maybe the
WMF can have _one_ "sister projects support officer" (think how many
dedicated _English_Wikipedia_ support staff the WMF has).

--
John Vandenberg