[Foundation-l] Do we have a complete set of WMF projects?

[Nathan]

Thanks for bringing this up, Mike. I think WikiReview sounds like a
great idea, WikiJournal sounds like it would suffer from a number of
very serious flaws, WikiWrite could be interesting, and that there are
probably a number of other project ideas that are equally interesting
but not necessarily ideal for Wikimedia expansion.

My sense has been that some of the newer projects, including
Wikiversity, tend to have limited readership and limited
participation. I'd be happy if someone could provide some data to
stack against this sense.[1] I think that without making a major
splash early on, new Wikimedia projects tend to languish. While
projects without widespread popularity are still useful, particularly
if they are highly specialized, projects like WikiReview/Journal/Write
would depend on public consciousness and participation levels to
achieve relevance.

We'll agree, I think, that relevance isn't a nice benefit, its
essential in order to attract readers and editors. Any new project
must meet a heretofore unmet need significant enough to draw an active
and self-perpetuating community. It isn't enough, then, to offer a
cc-by-sa alternative to a proprietary but sufficient source - we have
to be able to do whatever it is better.[2] Wikimedia has done this
with fantastic success with Wikipedia, other projects fill smaller but
vibrant niches - but we have some that don't meet this sort of
criteria, and any new project ought to.

Lastly, can we reconsider the naming scheme for future projects? The
"wiki-" prefix shouldn't be mandatory. Something like
"writereviews.org, a project of the Wikimedia Foundation" could be an
interesting alternative to "wikiwrite.org" or "wikireviews.org" that
doesn't immediately bring to mind the proliferation of personal wikis
on the web.

Nathan

[1]: The English Wikiversity, for example, has less than 12k "content
pages", while the German Wikiversity has only 1800. En.wikiversity has
175k registered users, but only 25 administrators. The English
WikiSource, with roughly the same number of users and administrators
as en.wikiversity, has ten times as many content pages.
[2]: A limited resource of uneven quality is not a preferable
substitute for an easily accessible, free-to-use and reliable resource
that is owned by a for-profit corporation.