[Foundation-l] Where we are headed with Wikiversity (was Wikimedia main office)

[Michael R. Irwin]

Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Before this conversation veers off into speculation, I would like to ask
>people to be please be very specific about specific things that you
>think the Foundation is doing or might be doing, that you think are
>inconsistent with our traditions and community values.  I know of
>nothing, although of course we can discuss and quibble about details of
>how various things are organized, etc.
>
>--Jimbo
>  
>
Specifically:

Stalling a firm go or nogo decision on Wikiversity after the proposal 
was supported by 200/300 voting community members.

Wikipedia.com built a community and converted to wikipedia.org on the 
basis of a firm mission statement attractive to people who dropped in 
and could find the URLs to the material again. 

With a firm no from the board another nonprofit could quickly be 
organized and the wikiversity.org domain transferred.

With a firm yes successful critical mass should be just a few years of 
hard work away.  

The  policies of en.wikipedia.org evolved from active participation of 
an interested community of volunteers.   They were not detailed in 
advance by a committee or rewritten for years (after a community vote to 
proceed) as per vague feedback from the stacked Board that the proposal 
just is not quite good enough to get started yet.

The Wikipedia community was also working within a dedicated stable set 
of URLs and contending only with their own deletionists, not other projects.

This is a substantial drift from the original community of volunteers 
and methods that created a successful wikipedia.org.

regards,
lazyquasar