Remarks regarding [[Task_force/Recommendations/Community_health]]
Sure...can I get a link where to post?
Sure - Talk:Task_force/Recommendations/Community_health - I'll do my very best to give your ideas some time, I appreciate that you put so much into them!
There's no one there...I guess I'll be first=P. Well I've had some thoughts regarding wikipedia's development and UI for some time...but there isn't much of a place to put them on wikipedia. Thanks for the link. I've put up a bulleted version at Talk:Task_force/Recommendations/Community_health#Suggestions_3080 I would like to see Wikipedia "succeed"...I personally find it intriguing that it got this far. It's amusing how tens of thousands of unpaid volunteers could write millions of quality articles...and to do so in the modern world of spam, where ignorance, a lack of common sense, and a generally discontent population thrive is a feat in and of itself.
I also wanted to suggest that wikimedia form some kind of partnership with nasa. Nasa has hundreds of thousands of free images, diagrams, and other resources that would greatly help the commons and wikipedia. Nasa currently posts videos on youtube and other social medias...I don't see why they wouldn't participate if wikimedia invited them.
Has the WMF ever invited some sort of "invitation" or sought cooperation from nasa?
To my knowledge, WMF has never actively courted NASA.
Here's my question to you: Who is best positioned to do this kind of work? There are literally thousands of potential partners. The Wikimedia Chapters have been successful at these kinds of partnerships in the past. Are there others who could be fulfilling this role? And when should the Foundation step in to do this kind of work?
I was a bit confused by your question "Who is best positioned to do this kind of work?" Do you mean in courting NASA?
I would assume those in the Wikimedia Foundation most involved in the Commons and Wikipedia...
NASA has hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of images, videos, diagrams, and 3d models that could be used for the commons.
It also has rather extensive documentation and mission/project summaries that surpass those on wikipedia.
Hi, I just wanted to step in and support smallman's point. I think a collaboration with NASA would be really beneficial for the both parties, a separate wiki could be created with all the info directly from NASA acting as a public repository with all the info and pics etc.. I do think the collaboration's benefit would only be focused on some astronomy, astro-science sections etc., rather than any large benefit to the overall project. Any user or representative acting on behalf of the foundation (with their permission and support of course) could approach NASA, the content once provided could be organised and arranged by the community just like any other wiki project. Although I doubt NASA would release things not in public domain currently, but a public collaboration might bring some positive PR as well, releasing content to an encyclopedia like wikipedia which updates every minute might provide a better outlest for the content than many other currently used by NASA to engage the public directly.
Most of their content is in public domain...its just a matter of making it accessible/useable here. I would support a nasa wiki...though my main goal is to get them to post their content on the commons...they have millions of records including diagrams, videos, models, fact sheets, graphs...etc.
I do agree that it would be great for Nasa's PR=D.
there also needs to be a consideration about the massive size of NASA's content. As you mentioned yourself, there are millions of records, it would rival wikipedia's size at the very least, bringing with it increased costs. Also, smallman I meant positive PR for both the parties.
I did request a bot upload at the commons a while ago.
Erm costs...well I don't really have to say on that...that's for the wikimedia foundation and nasa to figure out. My goal, as a contributor, is to improve the quantity and quality of "stuff" available on wikipedia=D.
Well, Nasa could use some positive PR, wikimedia generally has good PR, but more wouldn't hurt=D.
I think that collaborating with NASA and similar groups is a fantastic idea. I think we need to assume that, for the most part, the Wikimedia Foundation is generally not the right group to be doing this. In her February letter to the board, Sue Gardner stated that the Foundation will not be prioritizing content partnerships.
That means that some other entities need to do that. Wikimedia Chapters are the most obvious groups to do this. But it also raises some larger questions worth discussing: If the Foundation itself is not going to be negotiating partnerships, what can it do to support groups that will be?
It also raises the interesting question of territory- chapters have traditionally guarded their national borders rather zealously - this falls into an area with no national chapter...
The goal should remain to foster cooperation. I for one am disappointed at the lackluster approach Wikimedia takes towards real world partnerships. NASA currently coeperates with dozens of other web 2.0 companies including youtube, the internet archive, and scribds...
I don't see the benefit in avoiding real-world collaboration, especially when NASA (among other agencies) has so much to offer from a nearly license-free standpoint.
We're going back-and-forth here. The Foundation isn't avoiding real-world collaboration at all. Witness the recent Telefonica announcement as an example, or the recent Subject-Matter-Improvement Pilot Program, which is a partnership with university public policy initiatives to improve the quality of some articles.
The Foundation only employs 35 people. It's responsible for the up-time of the servers, protecting the brand, improving the software, and many other things. So it has limited resources to take on other projects. Just to give you an example of how underresourced the Wikimedia Foundation, Facebook recently announced that it has one million users for every developer. For comparison, the Wikimedia Foundation has 30 million users for every developer.
Three years ago, the Foundation was even smaller. One of the reasons that Wikimedia Chapters emerged was to specifically take on the task of content partnerships. The Chapters agreement with the Foundation allows it to use the Wikimedia brand so that it has the power to make these kinds of partnership deals. There are probably ways to improve the Chapters agreement, and there may be ways to empower other people to do the same. We should definitely have a conversation about it.
Here's my point. I totally agree that a partnership with NASA would be wonderful. The point of doing a movement-wide strategic planning as opposed to simply a Foundation strategic-plan is to also answer the question, "Who should do it, and how can they be further empowered?" The answer cannot always be, "The Foundation should do it," because that's not realistic.
So the question, at the end of the day is, who might take this on? Chapters? What's preventing this from happening right now, and how could this be resolved?
Those are the questions I had in mind...and being that this is the "Strategic planning" wiki, I was hoping that someone could answer them...