[Foundation-l] A Wikimedia project has forked

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Erik Moeller, 13/09/2011 03:55:
> That's of course a risky project and it may not live up to our
> expectations. But it's IMO a smarter bet to make than just picking
> (with an unavoidable element of arbitrariness) one of the many
> specialized areas in which we currently aren't succeeding and throwing
> $ and developers at it.

But that's exactly what the WMF is doing. The Usability Initiative, the 
WikiLove extension, ArticleFeedback, MoodBar, StructuredProfile and so 
on (you didn't mention LiquidThreads, but that's another one if it's not 
freezed) all are risky projects with which the WMF is intervening on 
areas and problems of the software which have always been overlooked: 
all of them have [had] their (big) issues but the WMF has decided to 
take the risk.[1]
So your point is just the usual one: Wikipedia is currently a success, 
it's probably the only thing we're able to do, so let's put all 
resources and risks there,[2] we can fail but considering the past we 
are also likely to succeed.
The idea that others should take the risk of working on non-Wikipedia 
projects is the logical consequence and ecnouraging innovation is a good 
thing, but it doesn't change the fact that the premise is highly dubious.

Nemo

[1] And I agree, although I disagree on some details and I'm not 
convinced at all that all of them can actually be useful for other 
languages.
[2] And mostly on the English edition for the same reasoning.