[Foundation-l] Re: Official Wikimedia roadmap?

[Anthere]

I certainly agree on the principle. Practically, some thoughts were 
already given by Danny and Sj on this if I remember well, and there was 
already some work done in that perspective, when I suggested we create 
the hardware requirement page so as to help Mav in his budgeting work.


There is one point on which I do not agree with you though. It has to do 
with the projects launching typically.

If we do what you suggest (ie, indicating the board planned road, to be 
reviewed/approved by the community), it implies we are having a top down 
approach entirely. Besides, it makes it appear we have already taken 
decisions in our mind of what to do and what not to do, even though we 
may just be thinking of it.


For example, you seem to suggest that 1) the board should indicates its 
desire for a wikinews project (as a good idea to pursue... which implies 
there already is a good and definitive description of the project to be 
based our decision upon), then that 2) the project should be reviewed 
and approved by the community.

It seems to me this approach is PRECISELY the one which was recently 
rejected and that there was a general desire for the community to be the 
motor of road map.

Hence, though I definitly have some opinions myself, I will prefer to 
have this road map collectively written, rather than the board giving a 
strong steering direction.

In this, we differ very much :-)

Anthere




Erik Moeller a écrit:
> Without wanting to overburden the Board of Trustees which I am sure is  
> already working at their personal limits, I'd like to suggest that we  
> create an official Wikimedia roadmap for the next 3 years.
> 
> When working on the fundraising pages, I could not find a good, officially  
> sanctioned "future activities" page on meta or elsewhere (if I missed  
> something, please let me know). I think that this, together with a well- 
> written mission statement, would be quite important to educate people  
> about what Wikimedia is about. This could address many common criticisms  
> (Wikipedia is not reliable etc.) and hopefully put to rest the  
> misconception that Wikimedia and Wikipedia are essentially the same  
> project.
> 
> What I am thinking of is a document roughly with three columns:
> 
> Quarter   Projects               Technology            Financial
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> Q4/2004   - Launch Wikinews [*]  - MW: Database schema - Quarterly
>           - German Wikipedia CD    redesign              fundraising
> 
> with each of these items linking to detailed project pages. This could  
> then be combined with some prose that outlines our vision for future  
> projects and needs.
> 
> I want us to become better aware of the interdependencies between and  
> financial needs of our projects, otherwise we might run into some serious  
> trouble when e.g. we start some well-intended offline edition without a  
> solid peer review process in place.
> 
> There's a problem with this, however, in that the board would have to  
> decide *now* which projects it thinks will be executed in the future, even  
> if there has not yet been a vote or a full feasibility study on these  
> projects. In order to address this problem, I added a "[*]" above, which  
> would then be resolved to
> 
>   [*] Tentative. There is consensus among board members that this
>       [[m:Category:Proposed projects|proposed project]] is a good idea
>       worth pursuing, but no extensive community review has happened yet.
> 
> Hence, I would suggest that the roadmap essentially would reflect the  
> board's collective bias on the various proposed projects.
> 
> What are your thoughts on that? We could try to write this together on  
> Meta, but the Board would at least have to provide a rough "consensus  
> paper" to base it on (e.g. which projects the board definitely wants to  
> do, which technology needs it definitely sees etc.). After some community  
> work, it would then be handed back to the board for editing and the final  
> stamp of approval.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Erik