[Foundation-l] New Project Process

Thu Apr 5 06:33:11 UTC 2012

Hoi,
The WikiData project is at first very much technical. Software is developed
and as the software gains a certain level of maturity, a community will
start to grow. This community will slowly but surely become integrated with
other Wikimedia projects.

At this stage all eyes are on Wikipedia but Commons is another contender;
the current data on the pages is highly structured and this makes it an
obvious target. The quotes of Wikiquote can also be structured and made
into structured data. The information in Wiktionary can also be structured,
this  has been realised to a really large extend in OmegaWiki.

The most important notion as far as I am concerned is that WikiData will to
a large extend compete with the WikiText and content will migrate to
WikiData when it is appreciated what added value can be had as a result.

When you consider new projects for the Wikimedia Foundation, when you even
consider the existing projects, the key consideration is what is it that
you want to achieve in that project and how this can be best realised.
There are both technical, organisational and community issues. When you are
willing to tackle these issues, when the Wikimedia Foundation is to tackle
these issues it means that we will have to consider more than just business
as usual. It means that tools that support existing practices like the
recording of pronounced text can be either better documented maybe even
integrated. This is to prevent the recurring development of new tools with
the same purpose because older tools are unknown or not maintained.

In a nutshell; because of Wikidata our standard practices will change. This
will have an impact on new and old projects. Please consider the technical
requirements of a project and do not consider new projects when they will
not get the tools and the support they need.
Thanks,
     Gerard

On 3 April 2012 06:40, Samuel Klein <sj at wikimedia.org> wrote:

> With the launch of the WikiData effort, I am reminded that we should
> return to our early willingness to experiment with new project ideas.
> This means both starting new types of projects (like commons, like
> wikidata!) and closing / archiving / spinning off projects (like the
> sep11 wiki).
>
> Two things I would love to see in the near future:
>  - a fixed new-project process, and at least one proposal evaluated
> through it.  Starting to work through the backlog of new project
> ideas/requests that have existing active projects elsewhere
>  - a global list of areas needing free knowledge, and how far we are
> as a society towards reaching that goal
>
> SJ
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Samuel Klein <sj at wikimedia.org>
> Date: Mon, Jul 11, 2011 at 2:01 AM
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] They do make or break reputations
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
>
>
> I would love to see the new project process on Meta come back online.
> (much of this email is posted to [[m:talk:new project proposals]])
>
> I could use some help in making this happen - we need to start an
> incubator process for ideas with support, and a separate process for
> proposing existing projects that have been incubated elsewhere for
> support or hosting.   The meta page for each proposed project should
> track its progress, whether offsite or on the incubator...  a project
> infobox should be designed... an interested group (if less formal than
> langcom) should go through and review the backlog of proposals and
> suggest the necessary next step for each.
>
>
> On Sun, Jul 10, 2011 at 11:48 PM, Alec Conroy <alecmconroy at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >> You can always make Wikinfo a sister project.
>
> A space to hold POV debates would be an interesting intermediate
> ground between no-restraint edit wars and topic bans, for those in
> heated argument.  Is Wikinfo designed for this?  I was thinking of
> something more like 'Wikireason'.  There have been various proposals
> for an 'argument wiki' over the years, but I've never seen a working
> implementation.
>
> > I have actually been independently trying to think of other wikis that
> > should be "sister projects".   Some are really obvious and
> > non-controversial--
>
> > SNPedia, for example, an encyclopedia of single nucleotide polymorphisms
> and related studies
> Yes.  Link:  http://www.snpedia.com/index.php/SNPedia
>
> Genealogy:  WeRelate and Rodovid.  Both remarkable and lovely
> projects.  Combinable, if all parties could be brought together.
> Both could use support; I've touched on the possibility of becoming
> WMF projects with each, and they are willing to discuss it.  The
> result would be by far the largest free collection of genealogy
> information, with support from one of the major libraries studyig and
> archiving related data in the US
>
> Children's encyclopedia: WikiKids, Vikidia, Grundschulwiki, Wikimini.
> These projects could be coordinated better to share ideas and lessons,
> and could use more visibility.  Some people active in these projects
> are already Wikimedians.
>
> Dictionaries: OmegaWiki.  This multilingual dictionary could help
> revamp our toolchain for Wiktionary, which remains a bit broken.
>
> Interface translation: TranslateWiki.  iirc it does not want to be a
> WMF project per se, but could use more explicit support than we have
> given so far.
>
> Citations and bibliography: AcaWiki (and the budding WikiScholar).
>
> Wikified maps: Wikimapia. currently profitable and popular; probably
> fine on their own.  However they use a non-free map stack and use an
> NC license; finding a way to help that project migrate to a free stack
> and license  [now that there is a free orthorectified aerial map
> available
> http://blog.stevecoast.com/im-working-at-microsoft-and-were-donating-ima]
> would be of benefit to the whole world.
>
>
> Other projects for which there is a supply of raw materials available
> from content donors (which we cannot currently accept):
> * Annotated source materials and their translations:  Part of Wikisource++
> ?
> * Translation memory:  Part of Translatewiki++ ?
> * Public datasets: Wikidata
> * Music scores: Wikimusic
>
>
> > We're at the point where the lack of diversity of our English language
> > project 'styles' may be a major factor dissuading new users from
> > participation.
>
> It is certainly one of the factors.
>
>
> Sam.
>
>
> --
> Samuel Klein          identi.ca:sj           w:user:sj          +1 617
> 529 4266
>
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