Re: Website for Wikibookians

Andrew Whitworth wrote:
> On Dec 9, 2007 6:12 PM, Wikinews Markie <newsmarkie-gM/[email protected]> wrote:
>   
>> the traffic doesn't unnecessarily have to be offloaded onto wikizine, it can
>> be any server but i can see your point.  however i also cannot see the
>> foundation allowing you to host an IRC server on any of their servers, so
>> why not just donate to wikizine or IRC@work or somebody??
>>     
>
> The point of all this would be to create our own website that isn't
> affiliated with WMF and is run on our own dime. This is similar to the
> Wikinews http://www.wikinewsie.org, but I'm having to think of many
> additional uses for it, to try and make the sale.
>
>   
> --Andrew Whitworth
>   

How much of this is similar to the idea of the "Wikibooks Foundation" 
idea I floated before the last board elections on the Staff Lounge? 
(More like a lead balloon that sank at sea, but I still raised it.)

There are some activities that the WMF board either doesn't want to get 
involved with or for various reasons legally can't.... which some 
Wikibookians do want to get involved with.  Some of what you are saying 
here about having a completely independent website might have some good 
merit, and I am liking the general approach you are taking on doing this.

I want to make it clear that there certainly is a huge role that a WMF 
sponsored website for textbook and other book-length material to be 
hosted, and I'm not trying to say by any means to tell of the WMF off... 
but at the same time trying to organize activities, particularly some 
potentially profit-making activities, has been embarrassingly difficult 
to put together and at the same time maintain a distance to avoid the 
appearance of ethical conflicts.

Wikibooks is reaching a new level of development, and it will be 
interesting where the community will go from here.

-- Robert Horning