User:Robert Harrison~metawiki/Proposals for new projects/Alternate

From Meta, a Wikimedia project coordination wiki
This is an alternate way of displaying the Proposals for new projects page.
It is based on en:Wikipedia:Articles for deletion (only in form not in purpose).

Wikimedia's goal is the spread and promotion of knowledge. If you want to propose a new project under the umbrella of the Wikimedia Foundation which is in line with this goal, you can:

The policy for new projects is at New project policy. Please read it before making any proposition.

If you want to propose a new language for an existing project, please do so on Requests for new languages.

If you want to propose closing an existing project, please do so on Proposals for closing projects.

Instructions[edit]

Detailed information is on the policy page. Read this as well as the "research" section below before proposing a new project.

Research[edit]

Note: Wikimedia is not a free hosting company for any kind of wikis. If your project doesn't fit the ideals of Wikimedia you are probably better off with a wiki hosting site such a wikidev.net or WikiCities (by Wikia) or hosting it on your own. See also a page about Wiki Farms on other Wiki for a bigger list of those, with user reviews.

Your idea may also be better for expanding an existing project than for creating a new one.

Individuals attempting to create a new project may benefit from reading the Wikipedia timeline and Uses of a wiki.

Existing projects[edit]

Existing Wikimedia-hosted projects which you may not be aware of (full list):

Non-Wikimedia projects that run MediaWiki and have free/open licenses:

List of WikiCities wikis (they use MediaWiki)

Also see Sites using MediaWiki.

If you are suggesting an enhancement which requires a change to the MediaWiki software, please file a feature request in MediaZilla and here as well, if appopriate. Usually a request won't be required here.

If you have a proposal for any other type of enhancement to an existing project, please visit that project and attempt to gather interest there.

If you want to expand an existing project into a new language, please see:

Other Wikimedia projects[edit]

Wikipedia[edit]

One other place to strongly consider is to look Wikipedia's series of subprojects, WikiProject. Many of the proposals listed below could be incorporated into one of those projects, or perhaps a new WikiProject could be started instead. Wikipedia is evolving and changing over time, and there is already quite a bit that can be adapted from the content on Wikipedia, not to mention involving people who commonly use and edit Wikipedia.

Wikisource[edit]

Wikisource also has a similar effort for larger subprojects of Wikisource that are focused on original source material that will require quite a bit of effort to transfer to that project. This would be things like historical dictionaries, encyclopedias, or other multi-volume reference works that are of a historical nature and can be copied according to the terms of the GFDL.

Wikibooks[edit]

In addition, it has been suggested on many of the proposals listed below that a good place to look would be with Wikibooks. If you are trying to put together a large collection of factual information into one place, starting a Wikibook may be a good place to go. If it doesn't quite fit Wikibooks, the other editors at Wikibooks will try to help you get to the correct place as well.

Be persistent[edit]

Don't take criticism at proposals personally. There have been a number of mistakes made in the past in regards to starting up new project ideas, and several of the "veteran" users are afraid of repeating those same mistakes. New ideas are taken seriously, although it should be admitted that the process of going from an idea for a new project to actually turning on a server that is implementing that idea will take quite a bit of time and effort. If you are proposing these ideas, be willing to take some "arrows" in your back, a lot of criticism, cynicism, and outright disbelief that your ideas are not going to work. If it really is a good idea, there will be others who will be willing to help you out as well. Be persistent and don't give up right away.

The last major project that made the jump from a project idea to something going on its own was Wikinews. Some veteran users are suggesting that it will be a year or two before any other project idea will be accepted as a new separate project, if ever. If you want to see how a project idea has been successful, it would be wise to see what was done to go from idea to an actual project, please look at the project proposal page for Wikinews. In particular, click on the history button and look back in time over some of the complications they went through before going "live". Any projects that don't live up to this sort of standard for coming into existance will likely not be considered as a new project by the Wikimedia Foundation's Board. Don't get discouraged, but it is not going to be easy either.

If you see something that doesn't fit into any current Wikimedia project, could be done using MediaWiki software, can be distrbuted using the GFDL (or very similar license) for republishing, please feel free to add a suggestion below.