On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 5:32 PM, Michael Peel <[email protected]> wrote:
> > On 2 Sep 2009, at 12:35, David Goodman wrote: > > > There is sufficient missing material in every Wikipedia, sufficient > > lack of coverage of areas outside the primary language zone and in > > earlier periods, sufficient unsourced material; sufficient need for > > updating articles, sufficient potentially free media to add, > > sufficient needed imagery to get; that we have more than enough work > > for all the volunteers we are likely to get. > > I apologise for taking this slightly out of context, but it touches > upon something I've been wondering about recently, which is: do we > have a complete set of WMF projects? > > David focuses on Wikipedia, which is the main project, and also > touches on Wikimedia Commons. We also have (in no particular order) > WikiBooks, WikiSource, WikiNews, Wikiversity, Wiktionary, Wikiquote > and WikiSpecies, in all their various languages. Each of these has > essentially its own set of volunteers (so I disagree with David's > assertion at the end of his paragraph - different work brings in > different volunteers). > > The latest* one of these projects is Wikiversity, which opened on 15 > September 2006. That's almost 3 years ago. In terms of internet time, > that's practically a generation ago. > > Do we now have all of the projects running now that we could have > running? Are all of the gaps in our project coverage already done > sufficiently well by someone else that we couldn't improve on matters > by having our own? > > Geographical/atlas/map kind ofproject granted, there's wikimapia and other external equivalents but we (Wikimedia) are lacking it > My personal feeling is that there's plenty of scope for new Wikimedia > projects. There have been plenty mentioned on this mailing list, or > on the various wikis, etc.** A wiki version of OpenLibrary is a good > example of something we could try; even if it failed then it wouldn't > be time wasted, as the result could be fed into OpenLibrary. So, I > think the answer to my question is "no". > > What could be the cause of this recent dearth of new projects? > > Could it be the presence of Wikia? > > Are we stuck in the mindset of just Wikipedia + supporting projects? > > Is the technical side of things too moribund to easily establish new > projects? > > Are we afraid of trying new things (or worse, unable to try new things)? > > Do we lack the leadership to make new projects successful? > > Is it a limitation of not being able to make a living from working on > Wikimedia projects? > > Wikimedia is big enough that it can launch new projects very > publicly, and get a lot of support (both volunteer and financial) > very quickly. It's widespread enough that you can ask a group of > people in any room if they know of Wikipedia, and over half of them > will.*** Actually editing Wikipedia might not appeal to them, but > working on a different project could, especially if it's in their > speciality. > > One final question: do we need to start looking for project donations > - i.e. absorbing projects started elsewhere? > > Mike > > PS: my questions here are posed to be provocative. Please don't take > them as accurately representing my viewpoints. > > * Note that increasing the number of languages that these projects > use doesn't in my mind count as a new project. > ** A few of my favourite examples: WikiJournal, publishing scholarly > works; WikiReview, providing in-depth reviews of subjects; WikiWrite, > where fiction can be written collaboratively; etc. > *** Country-dependent. Your language may vary. > > _______________________________________________ > foundation-l mailing list > [email protected] > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
