Seed wiki

This proposal seems to be termed, as there is an incubator wiki now; see incubator.wikimedia.org.

Wikikernel
Project proposal Wikikernel Discussion Names Policies Logo Licensing Transwikis Older proposals Wikilabs Seed wiki modify

This is not the same as seedwiki.com. See also the newer page at Wikikernel.

The idea of a 'seed wiki' or 'incubator wiki' was discussed at the Open_Board_meeting,_August_2005. This would provide a space for projects that have not got official Foundation approval but that might at some point in the future. At this meeting, notafish, Danny, Yann and Vampwillow decided to form a committee on what would become of this idea and what its policies would be.

Policies

Some general governing philosophies need to be followed for the policies to be established or at least to consider these issues:

• The Wikimedia Foundation has an educational and literary focus that must be maintained. If we keep with the mission statement of the Foundation charter, it should be fine but new projects shouldn't be too far from the main focus of the Foundation, nor too different from existing projects.

• Projects that compliment existing sister projects, such as Ultimate Wiktionary or Wikidata are more likely to succeed due to useful features that can help other projects to grow. In addition, complementary projects are also going to have an existing user base to help the project to grow and develop.

• This incubator wiki is not the first step that should be used to try out an idea. An idea should be developed on Meta first through the Proposals for new projects page first, with appropriate discussion on Foundation-l and the creation of a proposal page on Meta with some discussion about the merits of the idea first.

• This is not a substitute for Wikicities. This wiki should be used for projects that intend to become a full Wikimedia sister project in the future.

• As this is to be an incubator of new Wiki ideas, some general lattitude should be used to allow new project ideas to be developed. While the goal may be to become a full sister project, the standard shouldn't be so high to exclude all new ideas. Several new project proposals should be allowed to develop and not languish on Meta indefinitely.

• The approval process to get onto the incubator wiki should be community orientated and not necessarily involve the Wikimedia Foundation board. The concensus to become a new incubator project should not involve the numbers required to become a full sister project.

• The introduction of this wiki is going to require changes to New project policy as well by design.

Possible projects

For now, see Proposals_for_new_projects

Points to consider

Policies should be in place to prevent this simply becoming a wiki hosting site like all the other wiki farms. Only projects which have some support of becoming Wikimedia projects or languages should be hosted there.

Possible Names for the Project

In addition to SeedWiki, some other alternatives for naming this project could be the following:

Development

• Sounds more like it's for software development than for trialing a wiki. Angela 03:26, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Test

• Would cause confusion with the "test wiki" used for testing new releases of the software. Angela 03:26, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Seed wiki

• Would cause confusion with the wikifarm at seedwiki.com. Angela 03:26, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Ideas

• Could be good if the projects started there are still in the "idea" stage of development. Angela 03:26, 14 November 2005 (UTC)