Great analysis SJ. By the way - since we're talking about working with other organisations outside of Wikimedia Projects, there is another Strategic Planning taskforce that people might be interested in weighing in on. http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Alliances_and_Partnerships_Task_Force The "expanding content" one has already been mentioned in this thread but the "partnerships and alliances" is trying to discuss how the Wikimedia projects/Foundation/community should interact with other projects.
Best, -Liam [[witty lama]] wittylama.com/blog Peace, love & metadata On Wed, Dec 2, 2009 at 4:49 PM, Samuel Klein <[email protected]> wrote: > Thanks for this repost, Laura. > > I don't know where 18 months comes from, but it is much much too long :-) > > > It might be more accurate to say that our project proposal process is > broken, and we simply need to fix it. The Meta process for requesting a > new > project is what I have in mind. As philippe pointed out, the Expanding > Content task force is meant to address the meta-topic of this thread. The > current (broken) process does in its way accomodate both new and adoptive > projects -- projects are encouraged to link to demo sites or live > communities in their proposal. > > Laura writes: > > some changes need to be made: > > > > 1) Clear procedure for what happens step by step in making such a > proposal. > > Post proposal. Contact people who support your position to vote in > favor... > > 2) Clear timeline of what happens and when so that people can plan > >accordingly > > 3) Expectations regarding exclusivity of proposal to the WMF during the > > proposal process. Can people propose it elsewhere or seek acquisition by > > others while there is an open proposal on Strategy Wiki? > > Yes. 1 and 2 need to be defined, along with any criteria that should be > met > before starting on 1. It is polite for the Foundation to let people know > whether it is worth their time to draft the proposal. > As for 3, I don't think anyone would ask for proposals to be exclusive. > Similarly, it is polite for the proposer to let the WM community know > whether they are serious, or about to pursue some other option instead. > > > On Sun, Nov 29, 2009 at 5:09 PM, Laura Hale <[email protected]> wrote: > > > The process broke down in the following places: > > ... > > 4. No clear point where a proposal is considered dead, beyond silence. > > 5. Misleading steps in the proposal process that create misconceptions. > > 6. Connectivity problems between proposals on strategy and meta. > > 7. Incorrect assumptions regarding Wikipedia needing to apply to all new > > projects. > > > > Also good points. 7 is an ongoing discussion, but the other three points > could be addressed with clear process. > > > > > I apologize for the earlier rambling and lack of clarity regarding what I > > was attempting to accomplish with my post. > > > > I found the background quite informative... > > > Dan Rosenthal writes: > > I'd toss in there "lack of realistic expectations from your project", > especially as far as being financially compensated is concerned. > > This point, the copyright question, and the narrowness of project scope > seem > like the hardest ones to reconcile. But that doesn't save us from > addressing the good points made about fixing the proposal process. > Wikimedians could respond quickly with "looks interesting, but a) > individiual projects don't get dedicated paid staff [since 2002 :)], b) > you'll have to pursue a license migration in one of the following ways..., > and c) you'd have to frame this as part of a larger-scope 'cultural > history' > wiki". > > As a pillar of the free culture community, it might also be useful for us > to > welcome such interest rather than frustrating it, offering an overview (as > a > community service) of the options for specialized free knowledge projects > that want sustainable hosting/supoport/tool development. > > > Mike.lifeguard writes: > > I mean to say that since 2006, and perhaps even further back, there have > > been no proposals which should have been approved. Why do we need a > > process to handle something which, in essence, *doesn't happen*? > > I'm not sure what you mean. There are lots of new interesting projects, in > line with our mission, that require tools and distributed collaboration to > replace proprietary but essential basic knowledge with free knowledge. A > number of them have had reasonable proposals made on Meta. Among the > projects that developed successfully independent of Wikimedia (most of > which > are nevertheless less often visited than, say, Wikispecies): > Wikikids, Rodovid + WeRelate, AboutUs, Open Library, Wikimapia + > OpenStreetMap. > > Wikimedia as a community could significantly shift the amount of attention > devoted to building these and other free-content reference works. We need > to decide whether we should. (by the way, this doesn't have to be limited > to starting new projects or adopting existing ones; we could find other > ways > to drive traffic and interested editors to fellow-traveller projects that > meet our criteria for furthering our mission. The part where closer > collaboration becomes interesting is: It would be great to see wikikids > projects in fr, de, es and nl (three independent projects!) develop > interwiki links[1]. We could help ensure WeRelate's data is backed up and > preserved for generations. Wikimapia might be even more beautiful without > its massive ads.) > > There's nothing wrong with us deciding that any particular Project isn't > within Wikimedia's scope, but each of those decisions deserves due > consideration. (note that we could decide that a Project like an atlas is > very much within our scope, but a specific proposed implementation isn't > suitable. Many current proposals got hung up on that distinction.) > > > I'd be far more interested in discussing ways we can critically evaluate > > which of our current projects should remain in the Wikimedia movement, > > and which should be asked to move outside that movement to continue > > their development. > > Once we have a way to assess projects for their priority is in the grand > scheme of empowering people to develop and share free educational > knowledge, > we can assess current Projects and implementations as well. Even our > lowest-traffic projects such as wikiversity and wikisource tend to be among > the most popular sites in their domain. > > SJ > > [1] the german grundschul wiki is the smallest, but has the best main page > welcome that others could learn from: > " > * Are you an expert in gerbils? > * Do you know all about airplanes? > * Do you know why penguins and polar bears never meet? > > Then you will fit right in! Join now! > " > _______________________________________________ > 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
