[Wikimedia-l] The Wikipedia Library

[JP Béland]

2013/8/26, Jake Orlowitz <jorlowitz at gmail.com>:
> I'm sensitive to concerns about the Library's location.  It is partly a
> legacy issue:  The Wikipedia Library partnerships started on English
> Wikipedia, and that's where the Credo, HighBeam, Questia, JSTOR, and
> Cochrane account donations were coordinated.  This made some sense at the
> time because these were English language source being donated (although the
> donations were promoted to and open to all global editors and projects).
> That
> will remain--global notifications about account donations and organizing
> will be sent using Global Message Delivery, Wikimedia Foundation blog posts
> and Signpost mentions will make other announcements.
>
> This is always a tricky issue for our movement but the intent is very much
> to benefit all projects and conduct outreach to all regions.  For
> neutrality, META is obviously best, but for overall convenience, English
> Wikipedia remains the largest and most active project, with the highest
> concentration of English language speakers.   So in that sense it's a
> question of maximizing convenience versus equalizing inconvenience.  If
> hosted on Meta, everyone has to switch wikis to get there.  If hosted on
> ENWP, all non-ENWP still editors have to switch wikis to get there, but the
> huge chunk of ENWP editors do not.
> This will hopefully become much less of an issue with interface changes
> like Flow and Global Watchlists.  Meta did just get notifications, so
> that's helpful, but I still feel collaboration is somewhat limited by our
> current infrastrcutre.
>
> There are other concerns such as turning Meta into a true hub for all of
> our editors, and representing our global nature by hosting global projects
> there.  These are important, and I want to give it more thought.
>
> So, in the meantime going to look into hosting this on Meta, and I will
> definitely at least mirror a portal there.  It may take some time while we
> continue to organize and get set up
>
> I'd like to continue talking more about this.  Cheers,
>
> Jake Orlowitz (Ocaasi)
> jorlowitz at gmail.com
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Good day,
Thanks for your reply and input. I never intended to imply that this
project was closed to the global community, because I'm certain that
this is not the case.

This is more than just a question of "having to switch wikis to get to
the Library", there is also an important perception factor. True that
all non-enWikipedians have to switch wikis anyway, but there is
something different from switching from your wiki to a global one,
i.e. Meta, and switching from your wiki to another one that you may
not contribute to. Even if it's not the case, there is a perception
that if a project is hosted on a local wiki it is intended for the
local community.

Thanks,
JP Béland
aka Amqui