Expanding Content

Hello all,

this is an important issue and I'm glad that such a rich conversation is happening about it. While I believe the instrument of a "Wikimedia project" (that is, a new brand identity, new wiki, new community) isn't the only instrument of expanding content or even the most significant, it's a powerful one.

I think there are at least two concrete action points that the Wikimedia movement could tackle here:

• Reviving and reforming the New project policy.
  I believe it was the first concrete articulation of a process for starting and closing projects. It's currently simply marked out of date, and I think an iteration of this policy and associated process would allow us deal with some open questions:
  • When and how will existing external projects be adopted by WMF?
  • Under what circumstances will WMF dedicate significant technical resources to a new project idea?
  • How can we assess the success or failure of a project, beyond simply polling people?
  • When and how will existing WMF projects be "spun off" to other organizations or entities (including potentially chapters)?
  • Should there be a dedicated incubator wiki for new projects, not just new languages?

• Clarifying the importance of different types of content for Wikimedia's mission.
  So far, WMF has dedicated the bulk of its resources to support the highest impact projects (Wikipedia, Commons, MediaWiki). Clearly, not all other initiatives are equally important.
  • Should WMF, for example, make it a product priority to build a world-class multilingual dictionary and thesaurus? If so, it would need to shift dramatically more resources towards Wiktionary (or a new project) than it has done so far.
  • What resources are the most in global demand, the most potentially transformative, and the most suitable to Wikimedia's models for collaboration? This is a great opportunity for research.

I believe that both of these are ultimately Board decisions. I do think significant work could be done here on StrategyWiki to advance our thinking on those two actionable points and deliver recommendations to the Board. Does that make sense, and if so, would this be something people would be interested in helping with?

Eloquence,

I agree the New Project Policy simply needs revisiting and improvement to address many of the basic questions here. And there is a part of this conversation that informs the new language policy as well -- we must consider whether "to each person in their own language" is still essential, and how much we care when a Wikipedia in a minor language becomes the most significant and useful corpus of text available online. [Some people and organizations certainly care a great deal about that.]

I would be most interested to help with focused work here on these questions, including research, discussion of demands and interests, and analysis of how other organizations handle the "umbrella vs. orchard" question. I mentioned the idea of having a task force dedicated to these questions today on the en:wv Colloquium, as it is relevant to their ongoing refinement of their scope and inclusion policies. Sj

Additionally: are we going to always have a double split: by project class and by language, or are we going to have multilingual projects? For instance, Wictionary could be a good candidate to become a unified (multilingual) project, but definitely for eventual projects to be accepted we could either consider a multilingual option or to exclude it from the very beginning.

"Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment."

That's the mission of the Wikimedia foundation.

I have to ask ... what's the point of being one of the world's least popular news sites? I could see the point if they were the only free news site in a world full of economic barriers. But news is already free. The economics of information force it to be free.

My conclusions:

1. That's why Wikipedia has taken off and Wikinews has not. Wikipedia has a unique value proposition: a free encyclopedia. There is nothing unique about free news.
2. The best way for the Wikimedia Foundation to further its mission of "freely sharing in the sum of all knowledge" is to support free access to news at other sites rather than providing a site itself. This also means supporting blogs and twitter and other media that allows people to stay up to date.

Anything other conclusion is an ego trip. It's a refusal to admit that there are some situations where other organizations are already doing a pretty good job of fulfilling Wikimedia's mission. Environmental and poverty organizations understand this. If no one else is working on it, you fill the gap yourself. If other people are working on it, you support them and conserve your resources.

Blinking twice.

I think that we should not overstretch ourselves in too many projects. Keeping those existing ones is already difficult enough. I know that creating new project has an immediate feel good perception and is positive for Public Relation but when you start looking at the unkeep to run that new project that another story altogether. So Wikipedia should commit sparingly its Key resource, the time & good will of its volunteers, into new project. Don't do it if you can't afford it and cant commit enough resources to make it a hit.

I'm rejoining Randomran position as Wikipedia should pick up "good fights" that no one else is taking while providing support to others groups/organizations doing well their job on their areas instead of entering in concurrence with them.

I'm not sure if we're in disagreement here.

There are a number of important initiatives out there (e.g. OpenStreetMap) which are doing perfectly fine on their own, and there's no point in us trying to replicate or absorb them.

There may be important initiatives that are struggling, which would like to be considered as official Wikimedia Foundation projects.

There may be existing Wikimedia Foundation projects that would be better off on their own, or even to be closed completely.

And there may be things that need to be free that currently nobody is making a serious effort to provide, and that should be of priority interest to the Wikimedia Foundation.

I'm not arguing that we should dramatically expand the scope of what we're doing. I think we should clarify our processes, and determine if WMF should specifically dedicate resources to any content areas that it currently isn't, in order to serve its mission.