New project proposals group

This page is devoted to responding to and organizing Wikimedia project proposals, which are usually proposed on meta's New project proposals page, on the mailing lists, or on various project-specific discussion pages (especially when someone tries to incorporate content which is considered inappropriate). Other proposals related to this one : Seed wiki and Wikikernel.

Wherever the work gets done, coordination does need to happen; as of early 2006, people proposing new projects rarely feel welcomed and often feel their ideas have been dismissed.

Project types

Some broad outlines of project types:

Database integration projects -- incorporating existing databases into a Wikimedia project (Census data into Wikipedia; GEMET thesaurus into Wiktionary; Voice of America pronunciations into Wikipedia/Commons)
Database supplement projects -- supplementing proprietary databases with free content in the same format (map annotations and w:NASA World Wind)
New community projects -- for content not accepted on other projects. Genealogy (like Wikitree, Wikipeople), Cooking (like Wikibooks:Cookbook and tips and tricks), Collaborative fiction. May or may not become Wikimedia projects.
New portals and views -- for supporting subcommunities of content, and focusing on them in detail. Some may be too detailed for inclusion in Wikipedia at present. For instance Faith Wiki, Memory Alpha.
Opinions, debates, and original work. Many proposals and existing work exists that relate to this category, e.g. WP Sandbox poems, 9/11, wiki-debates, etc.

Suggested project clusters

Many projects have been suggested in a variety of similar ways. These are particular project clusters that have been suggested at some time in the past.

Geography

Geo - software by Magnus Manske
Maps - Daniel Mayer, John N.
Wikimaps - Daniel Mayer
Wikipedia Historical Atlas - Ashibaka
Wikiteer - Anthony DiPierro
WikiGPS - GPSWIKI, slady

Older proposals and discussion to be merged : Maps(t), Spacetime DTD(Talk:Spacetime DTDt), Wikiatlas(t)

Music/Audio

 WikiMusic - Patrick Mannion - Suisui
 WikiScores - Christiaan
 WikiAudio - Christiaan
 WikiMusic (alternative proposal using same name) - Ryan
 Wikisound - Various users

Specialized Reference Works

 WikiRecipes - Dgrant
 Wikijunior - (Currently an active project)
 WikiLaw - soren9580
 WikiTech - The silentist
 1911wikipedia - Gary123
 WikiPatents - santa c
 Wikitrade - Ce garcon
 WikiChem - User:4.27.237.116
 Wikiproducts - +sj+
 Faith Wiki - Sean Turvey
 Wikiteach - Chris Fallis
 WikiTrivia - santa c
 Wikments - PiaCarrot
 Wikireview - Messedrocker
 Wikibuilder - Christiaan
 Wikirec - Mountainmantis
 Wikistandards - Roberth
 Wikiproofs - Revolver

Note that this seems to be a recurring theme in general, and the source of many new project proposals. Many of these can indeed be incorporated into existing Wikimedia projects, but some do fall outside the scope of a narrow definition of any of the currently active projects.

Reforming New Project Policy

The current New project policy leaves a strong impression that any and all project ideas are going to be accepted, as long as a good enough proposal is submitted. Based on the response from the Foundation mailing list, this impression is hardly justified, and there certainly needs to be some reform to these basic policies. While an improvement over what was around prior to the policy guidelines, there is room for improvement.

Suggested changes:

Adding steps to the proposal process. Announcements to Foundation-l should be made later in the proposal process, rather than something that happens immediately in the beginning. Concern that too many new project ideas are already with Wikimedia and "fixing" old problems. Especially avoiding projects like Wikispecies in the future.
Alternative advertising to attract interested people. Discouraging spamming, but providing legitimate routes to attract interested participants.
User education of what Wikimedia really is about. Some projects could be redirected to other existing Wikimedia projects.
New Project coordination group (this working group). Many new ideas simply need mentoring and guidance to become a full working project.
Establishing guidelines for new project proposal archiving. Current editing on the new project page is very arbitrary and non-uniform, particularly when projects are culled from the main page.

Issues and complications

Technical logistics

For projects which will require significant new infrastructure and development, describe those here.

Unusual rules

Projects which propose unusual rules should explain their reasoning in detail; such as

Not attempting to be neutral,
Having partially closed community policies,
Not aiming to eventually be multilingual,
Not being freely licensed, or restricting commercial and other reuse

Other repositories of project-ideas

Wikicities o Wikiciudades

Con este proyecto se busca diseñar el modelo ideal de cada ciudad de manera que se pueda vivir dignamente. En salud, educación, vías, transporte, parques, vivienda, ambiente, trabajo, industria, comercio, turismo, acueducto, alcantarillado, telefonía, energía, gas, calefacción, internet, policía, bomberos, cárceles, aeropuertos, etc.

Tomando la información actual mapas, estadísticas, fotos, videos, imagenes 3D, y acopiando las propuestas para cada ciudad. Kalosagathia 18:11, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Interested members

Please add your name below if you would like to join this group