Why can't people pay £2 per month and be a member of Wiki-everything! Better than [pledging.
Have a on line active site that tells you what is going on how much money there is! Get a members package? What do you think?! On Sun, Jan 30, 2011 at 5:13 AM, Erik Moeller <[email protected]> wrote: > 2011/1/29 phoebe ayers <[email protected]>: > > Having many wikis is an ongoing source of irritation for many, and it > > would be great to resolve this issue. Are there good arguments *for* > > having separate sites? > > Yes, and I think most people generally underestimate the complexity of > the issue. The reasons for WMF to spin up separate sites have varied, > but to try to put it as simply as possible, a dedicated wiki, in all > technical and social respects, focuses collaborative activity, which > can enhance productivity and reduce barriers to participation. In the > case of e.g. StrategyWiki, it also allowed us to try some radical > changes (like using LQT on all pages, or receiving hundreds of > proposals as new page creations) without disrupting some surrounding > context. I have absolutely no regrets about our decision to launch > StrategyWiki, for example -- I think it was the right decision, with > exactly the expected benefits. > > Meta itself has grown organically to support various community > activities and interests that had no other place to go. It has never > been significantly constrained by its mission statement. The "What > Meta is not" page only enumerates two examples of unacceptable use: > > 1. A disposal site for uncorrectable articles from the different > Wikipedias, and it is not a hosting service for personal essays of all > types. > 2. A place to describe the MediaWiki software. > > Its information architecture, in spite of many revisions, has never > kept up with this organic growth, making Meta a very confusing and > intimidating place for many, especially when one wants to explore or > use the place beyond some specific reason to go there (vote in an > election, nominate a URL for the spam blacklist, write a translation). > > So, let's take the example of OutreachWiki as a simple case study to > describe the differences between the two wikis. > > 1) The wiki's main page and sidebar are optimized for its stated purpose; > 2) As a new user, you receive a welcome message that's specifically > about ways you can support public outreach ( > http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Welcome ) > 3) All special pages remain useful to track relevant activity or > content without applying further constraints; > 4) Userboxes and user profiles can be optimized for the stated purpose > (e.g. http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Languages_and_skills ) > 5) There's very little that's confusing or intimidating -- the content > is clean, simple, and organized. > 6) If the OutreachWiki community wants to activate some site-wide > extension, it can do so, focusing only on its own needs. > > On the other hand: > > 1) Activity is very low; > 2) The wiki is largely in English; > 3) Meta has a long tradition of hosting outreach-related content, and > many pages still reside there or are created there. > 4) The existence of yet-another-wiki brings tons of baggage and > frustration (more dispersed change-tracking for users who want to keep > up with all activity, more creation of meta/user page/template > structures, more setup of policies and cross-wiki tools, etc.). > > It's not a given that 1) and 2) are a function of having a separate > wiki. As we've seen with StrategyWiki, activity is largely the result > of focused activation of the community. The small sub-community that > cares about public outreach on Meta is ridiculously tiny compared with > the vast global community that could potentially be activated to get > involved through centralnotices, village pumps, email announcements, > etc. So the low level of activity on OutreachWiki is arguably "only" a > failure of WMF to engage more people, not a failure of a separate > wiki. (It certainly makes all the associated baggage much harder to > justify.) > > But, I think the disadvantages of working within a single system can > be rectified for at least the four most closely related backstage > wikis (Meta/WMF/Strategy/Outreach). I do think working towards a > www.wikimedia.org wiki is the way to do that, importing content in > stages, with a carefully considered information architecture that's > built around the needs of the Wikimedia movement, a very crisp mission > statement and list of permitted and excluded activities, a WikiProject > approach to organizing related activity, etc. But it also would need > to include consideration for needed technological and configuration > changes, in descending importance: > > - namespaces (e.g. for essays, proposals, public outreach resources, > historical content) > - template and JS setup to support multiple languages well (e.g. > mirroring some of the enhancements made to Commons) > - access controls (e.g. for HTML pages) > - FlaggedRevs/Pending Changes (e.g. for official WMF or chapter > information) > - LiquidThreads (e.g. for a movement-wide forum that could > increasingly subsume listservs) > - Semantic MediaWiki/Semantic Forms (e.g. for event calendars) > > To simplify security considerations, we might want to have all > fundraising-related content elsewhere (e.g. donate.wikimedia.org). > > An alternative strategy, of course, is to focus on making the > distinction between different wikis as irrelevant as possible by > vastly improving cross-wiki tools, but the former approach seems more > viable in the not too distant future. I don't think "just move it all > to Meta" is the correct answer. > > -- > Erik Möller > Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation > > Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate > > _______________________________________________ > 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
