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Proposals for closing projects/Closure of Incubator Wikimedia

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The result of the following proposal for closing a WMF project is to KEEP the project. Please, do not modify this page.

The following discussion is closed: REsult: KEEP es:Drini 17:09, 16 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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Wikimedia Incubator should be closed because:

  1. Many people who are familiar with other projects do not know that the incubator exists or what it is for.
  2. New proposed languages projects must reinvent the wheel and rediscover approaches because language X does not get adequate attention/review by members of related communities. What this means is that proposed language X of Wikipedia does not benefit from the experiences of other Wikipedia project communities, and the process for deciding when a Wikipedia project is ready does not improved over time, for instance.
  3. New proposed language projects must start from scratch with no template or framework to start from, which delays the development of new language projects, and the development of an interested and independent community.
  4. Its focus and function is too broad, making it inadequate for keeping track of all changes to all related language projects and evaluating there progress in any meaningful way.
  5. Separation of pages for proposed language X of project Y from discussions and issues of concern to all project Y languages, splits what should be one community into many communities across 2 or more projects, and requires watching more then one project.
  6. It lacks a community that has a collective knowledge and experience of every Wikimedia project to help contributors trying to start/propose a new language.
  7. It ineffectively duplicates some of the purposes of Old Wikisource and Beta Wikiversity that the Wikimedia Foundation felt was required to make Wikisource and Wikiversity useful. For this reason I propose that along with the closure of Wikimedia Incubator that Wikipedia, Wikinews, Wikiquote, Wiktionary and Wikibooks each have an international wiki created for the process of proposing, hosting and creating new languages in a way that is best determined by related projects that exist already, for hosting materials that do not fit within a specific language project, and for all languages communities for a project to have a place to discuss and deal with project specific issues as a supplement to project-l mailing lists.

Support

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  1. Support --darklama 19:19, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Support A single "everything goes here" incubator is not nearly as useful as per-project incubators would be. A "wikibooks incubator" and a "wikinews incubator", etc, could be set up to lend tailored support for new projects of a specific type, including creating basic reusable and retargetable templates. Also, there is the issue over licensing, where the incubator is licensed GFDL-only, which causes direct conflicts with the foundation's policy that new wikis should be created under a dual GFDL+CC-by-sa license. Closing this wiki and creating new incubator wikis with more flexible licensing options is in everybody's best interest. --Whiteknight (meta) (Books) 14:16, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  3. strong Support Being in the community of beta wikiversity, I must say that creating the el.wv would be far less effective than in Incubator. This community provided such assistance, already from my first day, having not only the same "wiki" philosophy, but also be interested on helping and developing the same project. -- -- (user_page|chit chat|email) 16:38, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Don't you think you could also have had this on Incubator if those persons from Beta would have been on Incubator? --MF-W 16:54, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    No, I don't. The community would be much more bigger, and I wouldn't have the chance of talking with this people. Take en.wp for example, there are so many users there that community relationships are so more difficult to foster, than in smaller wikis. There are other arguements about closing incubator, but personally I'm not interested in them, I want there to be emphasis on community relationships, especially when it comes to nurturing new wikis. (sorry for my poor English). -- -- (user_page|chit chat|email) 19:38, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Even though I Support in principle, I don't think this page was a good way to handle things, similar to the wrong move of creating a "close" page for beta.wikiversity. The issue here is a larger one than whether this-or-that wiki should be closed, and it should not be treated as such. The real issue is: Where is the best place to start new languages in existing projects? In the current Incubator, or in a "beta" type place per-project, e.g. a "beta" for Wikipedia, Wikibooks, etc? A better way to start talking about this kind of "larger" issue would be through some community-wide discussion, perhaps at the Foundation mailing list. Then, if there is at least moderate support, someone might propose a positive move to open a new wiki, e.g. a new beta.wikibooks for project-wide coordination across languages and as a home for new language Wikibooks to take their first steps. Enough is enough with mean-spirited proposals to close down wikis! Dovi 09:00, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

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  1. I suggest that the proposal must be speedily closed as vandalism.--Yaroslav Blanter 21:46, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  2. I will suggest the same as this seems like an attack on Incubator, and this seems to be a counter-reaction to the Closure of Beta Wikiversity, sorry but this is NOT how wikimedia deals with resentment...--Cometstyles 21:53, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Of course any attacks as a reaction to that discussion should be discouraged, however that is not the intention of this page. Rather this is intended as a civil and serious consideration based on some problems brought up through that discussion and as possibly an alternative to closing Beta Wikiversity, so that the discussion on closing Beta Wikiversity can hopefully remain on the issue of whether Beta Wikiversity should or shouldn't be closed. I'd prefer if that discussion nor this one ended up being a mixed discussion of whether project X or Y should be closed, so that the discussions can be more productive. Leaving that page to focus on whether Beta Wikiversity should be closed and this one to focus on whether Incubator should be closed.
    So if your both opposed to Incubator's closure as I think you are, can you explain why Incubator shouldn't be closed? --darklama 22:40, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Oppose This looks like another Volapük wikipedia cleaning request/closing request. It's the most important place for people to start new projects!! --OosWesThoesBes 04:33, 29 May 2008 (UTC)(@es.wikt) 08:07, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Oppose This is ridiculous Jcwf 05:35, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  5. strong Oppose, incubator — very important project. --~Innvs: 06:02, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Ridiculous. Oppose. ----Anonymous DissidentTalk 07:07, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Incubator serves its purpose and is much useful. guillom 07:45, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Per almost all the above --Herby talk thyme 08:15, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  9. Erm... poor idea. Majorly talk 13:14, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  10. Oppose Voz da Verdade 13:40, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  11. Oppose per Anonymous Dissident --.snoopy. 16:42, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  12. Oppose Ridiculous. Incubator already effectively serves its purpose. Singularity 06:02, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  13. Oppose Ridiculous. Per Cometstyles. --MF-W 16:47, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  14. Absurd. Ral315 (talk) 17:06, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  15. All the reasons are very inappropriate and very ridiculous. I would want to react on each reason, but I don't want to waste time or space here at Meta. SPQRobin 17:25, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  16. Oppose Per Cometstyles. --SF-Language 17:35, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  17. Oppose per Yaroslav Blanter. --Thogo (talk) 09:29, 1 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  18. Oppose I don't think this merits a comment. --FiLiP ¤ 09:34, 1 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  19. Oppose —DerHexer (Talk) 09:34, 1 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  20. Oppose--Shizhao 07:21, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  21. Oppose important project --Dundak 21:14, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  22. Oppose with the same comment as Dungodung! Huji 21:59, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  23. Oppose - spinnvilt! --Jorunn 22:14, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  24. Oppose Ridiculous --Mardetanha talk 22:27, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  25. Oppose - Still useful. Soxred93 02:24, 14 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  26. Oppose - :-| --Cradel 18:20, 15 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Neutral

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  1. Neutral - There are benefits and liabilities for both the proposal and the status quo. It's certainly worth discussing though, especially for the subpage-based projects and perhaps Wikinews, which really work quite differently from the single mission projects like the Wikipedias, Wiktionaries, and Wikiquotes. Subpaged projects need both an overall structure and guidelines for structuring the particular subprojects. --SB_Johnny|talk|books 12:46, 1 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I think even projects like Wikipedia, Wiktionary and Wikiquote can benefit from having an initial structure, and some guidelines to work with. For instance new Wiktionary languages could perhaps benefit from some common style guidelines, some generic templates to help create new dictionary entries, and some common general policies about what is considered within its scope. New Wiktionary languages could than either use the developed style guidelines, templates and common policies as is, expand on them, or customize them for their own needs. A website that helps new Wiktionaries to form would be more focused on the needs of Wiktionary, as is demonstrated by the focuses of Old Wikisource and Beta Wikiversity. Among other things Incubator is not setup to encourage sharing as it requires all categories, templates, pages, etc. to use project and language prefixes. Since all pages require a project and language prefix, guidelines, templates, policies, etc. must belong to a specific project and not shared. --darklama 13:26, 1 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    It is quite logical that there are not many shared templates: Incubator is for projects in new languages, so they should translate a template and not use an English template. SPQRobin 15:21, 1 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I think you've misunderstood. The intention is similar to BetaWiki in how it provides translations for MediaWiki system messages. Through the different language communities interacting together, a set of common policies, guidelines, templates, etc. are made. After a proposed project is started these policies, guidelines, templates, etc. are translated into the local language. The initial version for a common set of guidelines, policies, templates, etc. may be in English, as may be the same case for MediaWiki system messages, but the intention is to use it as a means of providing translations for new languages projects. Sharing happens through having these common policies, guidelines, templates, etc. available for translation as new language projects are being developed. Translations can't take place when templates aren't readily available for translating or its not know what ought to be translated. --darklama 18:00, 1 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Neutral - If we just want to "clean things up", I think the fundamental question is whether or not projects are better incubated in one central location or within project specific areas. This may however vary for different projects. --Emesee 21:48, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

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It does need to address its problems which are plenty, but the closure proposal is hardly an appropriate place for this discussion.--Yaroslav Blanter 06:36, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think as long as Incubator hosts many small and unrelated wiki projects, even though there intended to only remain until they can stand on there own, some problems will persist beyond Incubator's ability to address. An incubator that hosts small wiki projects separated only by language can address some problems that on Incubator would require careful consideration of the separate goals of each type of wiki project. This sort of dilemma wouldn't be a problem if for instance Wikinews and Wiktionary had separate incubators for proposed languages, instead of sharing space on Incubator. --darklama 12:44, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I wouldn't reject the proposal outright, however, since it is effectively a proposal to create a number of new projects (beta Wiktionary, Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Wikiquote, Wikinews), it is definitely misplaced here.
  • Proposals for closing projects should only be made as a last resort when the priority is to get rid of something. I cannot see this here. If the incubator was so totally malfunctioning that the only resort would be to close it, the proposer better back up this claim with ``specific`` facts instead of very broad statements that the current proposal consists of. I fail to see any urgency and up to now I have no evidence that the creation of new projects is being hampered by the incubator as it exists today. There are many problems regarding the language approval process. I don't see, however, that the incubator was one of them. --Johannes Rohr 16:59, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    If this isn't the right place than what is? I gathered from rule 1 of the closure policy that an alternative to closure can also be suggested. On the other hand I think splitting Incubator could also be seen as effectively the same as closing it, since the proposal involves removing incubator.wikimedia.org and the priority here is to get rid of Incubator. While Incubator has no direct involvement in approving projects, I think it does play a major rule in the language subcommittee's decision, since proposers are expected to use Incubator to test the project and show there is a community to support it. --darklama 01:05, 1 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    One option would be Proposals for new projects, however, I feel that the most appropriate place to start a discussion would be the foundation-l mailing list, as it probably reaches those people who are most competent with regards to your proposal. However, if you do so, you better back up your proposal with specific facts on how you feel the incubator is malfunctioning and how exactly this would be improved if the projects were to follow the model set by oldwikisource and beta wikiversity. --Johannes Rohr 09:17, 1 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I could see great benefit to having incubators for all projects, as is already the case with Wikisource and Wikiversity, and as per Whiteknight's comment above. One of the problems with this, however, is what to do with any further Wikimedia projects that may appear down the line. Where would they be incubated? Cormaggio @ 12:28, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I think any new projects created down the line should have an incubator automatically created for it. So if en.wikicook.org were created tomorrow, www.wikicook.org should also be created to incubator new wikicook languages. --darklama 12:35, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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