[Foundation-l] Re: Positive discrimination related to smaller communities and projects

[GerardM]

Hoi,
I think the worst we can do is fork. It will mean that we will not
benefit from the economies of scale that the Wikimedia Foundation
offers. These benefits are huge, with a project that is part of the
larger community, you will be known and otherwise you have to struggle
to get the same "facetime". You will be just another project
struggling to get recognition. You will have to find programmers, you
will have to find hardware, you will have to do all the hard work that
is already done really well.

Take me as an example, I did not give up on Wiktionary, I worked hard
to get an idea of what we should have (by putting in a lot of work) I
got some community going and learned that we need one database to rule
them all .. :) I discussed this and learned about Wikidata. This is
the necessary building block for the "ultimate wiktionary". I found
someone to program it, I found someone to pay the programmer and, the
development has started. Wikispecies will benefit from this if we get
enough traction (read also but not only money) to make this happen. I
have uploaded some 3000 soundfiles and now the upload screen is
uploaded to such an extend that I can upload a Dutch pronunciation in
a fraction of the time.

My point to you is: Do not give up, get your community to grow and
find out what you really need. And work at it. My point to the list in
general is, there are many things that need doing We need resources to
make the things happen to grow the projects and communities other than
Wikipedia. When we agree to have all these projects and communities,
we have to invest in their well being. It is a defeat of who we are
when we get a fork because of unresponsiveness. It is certainly a pity
when we CAN hire programmers to create the desperately needed
functionality.

An example: It is easier to upload Dutch, English, German soundfiles
than Farsi soundfiles I can do easily 10 times more words in the same
time. It upsets me that a soundfile obscures text in Hebrew, Arabic or
Farsi because of this stupid symbol that is seen because Commons is
seen as an external resource.

I want to have dia shows when we have too many pictures for a subject.
I have ideas about "language immersion training" it needs some
software to allow for different target languages. Those are only my
ideas.... there are so many even better idea's....

We can get money for functionality, we can get money for servers. We
just have to ask. That is why the Foundation can be such a powerfull
organisation. It can be an enabler. That is in my opinion what we have
done brilliantly, given the outrageous success that Wikipedia is. We
just have to work hard on making the other projects a success too.

Define projects, define functionality, get a community interested in
change find money, find programmers. And let's make things even
better..

One thing you cannot do is expect others to do the work for you. If
you cannot do the programming, find someone who can and who will. If
you do not have the money find someone who does.  If you cannot define
your needs, find someone who can because without a well defined need
you are snookered and, on your own it will be only worse,

Thanks,
    GerardM


On Mon, 28 Mar 2005 06:35:24 -0800, Amgine <amgine at saewyc.net> wrote:
> In wikinews there has been an ongoing discussion regarding the
> unresponsiveness of the mediawiki team to issues considered critical to
> the project. This has now become a discussion regarding a fork of both
> hardware and software, and contributors are actively working toward
> doing so. I don't think this is the best choice, but it is beginning to
> look like the only choice.
> 
> Amgine
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