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

[Brian]

On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 6:28 PM, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:

> 2009/9/8 Michael Peel <email at mikepeel.net>:
> > What could be the cause of this recent dearth of new projects?
>
> Certainly the process for getting a new project underway is so complex
> and exhausting that it's not something that many people will be likely
> to engage in - especially considering that project ideas are often
> proposed by people who aren't currently very active Wikimedians.
> Perhaps we need to set up a formal system for long-time Wikimedians to
> adopt ideas they're excited about, to help push them to approval? In
> any event, if you want to add to the Wikimedia family, my guess is
> that it's currently a commitment of 2-3 months of several hours per
> week to get to that point, provided it's achievable to begin with.
>
> I do think that project adoption is something that we should explore
> in the right circumstances; it's not something we've ever done but IMO
> we should be open to it. I don't think OpenStreetMap or OpenLibrary
> want or need to be adopted. ;-) But there may be other smaller
> semi-successful projects that would like to join our project family,
> and that would make sense as part of it.
>
> I would also make the point that adding capabilities to existing
> projects can be just as effective at cultivating new communities of
> participants as creating an entirely new wiki, and sometimes more so.
> For example, as of a few weeks ago, there's now a fledgling community
> of people on Wikimedia Commons who add annotations to images, because
> a volunteer developed a cool image annotation tool. The entire
> community of people adding categories to Wikipedia articles could only
> form after the categorization functionality was developed.
>
> Because the Wikipedia community is so vast, adding capabilities that
> engage more people on Wikipedia specifically, or improving access to
> the existing capabilities, can have dramatically greater impact than
> creating a blank-slate wiki.
>
> That is not to say that I think there should be no new blank-slate
> wikis, or wikis with custom software, for specific purposes. But I
> would also not see the fact that no new top-level Wikimedia project
> has been created in recent years as a sign of stagnation - wonderful
> capabilities have been created in the existing Wikimedia ecosystem in
> that same time period, some of them with dramatic positive impact.
> --
> Erik Möller
> Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation
>
> Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
>
>
I propose expanding the notion of the Wikimedia Incubator to include
entirely new projects that are very, very easy to create. They don't need to
be approved by the WMF - they just need to demonstrate their value by
attracting a community and creating great content. This would be more like
the Apache Incubator, but even more open. This gives people an easy way to
prototype their ideas for new projects, to advertise them, and over time
will give an overview of what kinds of projects and approaches to projects
are likely to succeed and likely to fail.