[Foundation-l] Follow up: Fan History joining the WMF family

[phoebe ayers]

On Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 12:07 PM, Mike.lifeguard
<mike.lifeguard at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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*?

Does it not happen because there's no process, or is there no process
because it doesn't need to happen? I don't actually think there's any
consensus one way or the other, though the end result -- inertia, and
some confusion on the part of well-meaning people who would like to
start more projects -- is the same.

Also, not all proposed projects are similar -- some are closer to what
we're already doing than others. For instance, a group of researchers
& Wikimedians at WikiSym this year had an idea I've been meaning to
write up, for a reference commons that would support the existing WMF
projects (similar projects have been proposed before); this would be a
separate, tool-server-like project. Another example: lots of people
have worked on producing versions of Wikipedia for children, and
there's been talk of making a larger effort.

Assuming a project like that had merit, would this kind of project
also fall under the "doesn't need to happen" list for you? Or are you
mostly talking about proposals for "new wikis for x topic", which have
dominated the new projects page historically?

> 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.

I totally agree, though I think the questions I posed are also
applicable to this discussion, perhaps with a more general focus: what
sort of content do we want to host under WMF auspices? What sort of
projects?

I don't like the term "wikimedia movement" (at all), but it could be
useful for talking about the miscellany of projects related to us out
in the world that aren't necessarily hosted on wikimedia.org. But
that's different from asking what projects *should* be directly hosted
by Wikimedia. (Clearly, the answer is to get rid of the
ever-problematic wikipedia and concentrate on the rest of them :P)

-- phoebe


-- 
* I use this address for lists; send personal messages to phoebe.ayers
<at> gmail.com *