[Foundation-l] Moving the "test Wikipedias"

[Robert Scott Horning]

Nicholas Moreau wrote:

>On 6/6/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
>  
>
>>Cormac Lawler wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>Great! But is it too late to discuss the scope of this wiki? We've had
>>>discussions about having a separate wiki as an incubator for potential
>>>new Wikimedia projects (see:
>>><http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikikernel> or the older
>>><http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Seed_wiki>). Could/will this be that
>>>wiki?
>>>      
>>>
>>Sure, why not?
>>    
>>
>So can/should we move all of Wikiversity there? What about Wikijunior?
> Isn't Wikibooks just holding these until they are moved onto their
>own domain, therefore acting like the incubator wiki?  Wouldn't it be
>more apposite for them to be there instead?
>
>
>
>
>I'm not sure Wikijunior was originally intended to be a seperate
>project, actually.  I'd love for it to be seperate of Wikibooks, as we
>do have a domain registered for it, but the WJ community opposed such
>a move previously.
>
>Nick
>  
>
I have been a very long time critic of the process that started 
Wikijunior on Wikibooks, but at the same time the opposition to moving 
Wikijunior was simply that a formal project proposal needed to be 
started, with a good number of organization questions answered before it 
could be moved.  While these questions were answered by the individual 
who wanted to do the move, it really needed a larger Wikimedia user 
concensus before it could happen.

As far as having Wikibooks be an incubator project for new project idea, 
I think the defacto status of doing so has some promise, where project 
like Wikiversity, Wikijunior, and the Wikimania proceedings were on 
Wikibooks.  This is a demonstration of what Wikibooks could be under one 
vision, but again repeated requests to formalize this philosophy and 
make it actual policy on Wikibooks has met considerable resistance, 
including from several board members (including Jimbo) who have noted 
that Wikibooks should not be the incubator project for Wikimedia users. 
 As a matter of fact, Wikibooks has a explicit policy that prohibits 
anybody from using Wikibooks as a free webhosting service, and 
explicitly stated in [[b:WB:WIW]] that Wikibooks is not a site to 
develop new Wikimedia projects.  This clause was added due to comments 
on this list, and concensus on Wikibooks that this was a reasonable policy.

Wikijunior and Wikiversity were on Wikibooks before this policy was 
created and enforced, so in effect these projects were "grandfathered" 
and left alone until other means were available to deal with them.  With 
the Wikiversity sub-committee wrapping things up (a formal report will 
very shortly be given to the board), there is no need to move the 
content to an incubator wiki and then to another site again afterwards, 
nor move de.wikiversity to the incubator either.  I would imagine that 
Wikijunior would go through a somewhat similar process in the next year 
or two eventually.  With seven Wikijunior books now at a substantial 
level of completion, there is some real substance to work with on 
Wikijunior that would be the basis for a new sister project at some time 
in the future, not to mention that Wikijunior is also available in 
several different languages as well, including Chinese, French, German, 
and Italian.

-- 
Robert Scott Horning