This is a proposal for closing and/or deleting a wiki hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation. It is subject to the current closing projects policy.

The proposal is rejected and the project will be kept open.

A Language Committee member provided the following comment:
Slightly more than four years after the start, I close this proposal as REJECTED on procedural grounds. The discussion was started in 2013 as a section on Meta:Babel and was subsequently moved to a request for comment page on moving both the Multilingual Wikisource and BetaWikversity to Wikimedia Incubator. The discussion was then limited to only concern BetaWikiversity, and later on it was morphed into a "proper" proposal for project closure. Even in 2015 there was discussion on procedure, and by 2016 most support was given to "close this proposal as too old and open a new one to discuss the idea". Although it is unfortunate that this is the second time a long-running discussion has taken place on this proposal, opening a new one remains possible when well-prepared and well-executed: the proposal needs to be clearly defined (Wikisource and Wikiversity preferably treated separately) or have a clearly defined decision-making process, all stakeholders need to be well-informed and it should preferably be time-constrained. SPQRobin (talk) 22:09, 1 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Type: 2 (non-routine proposal)
Proposed outcome: closure
Proposed action regarding the content: should be merged to Wikimedia Incubator
Notice on the project: project notified
Informed Group(s): (Which chapters, wiki projects, and other community groups have been informed, if any.)

Previous proposals on this same topic were rejected. As suggested in this closing statement, a new, clearer proposal was created for merging Beta WV into Incubator.

Hi, sorry for my bad English. Some words may be the same in the different languages - that's why Incubator exists and that's why we use prefixes. But we can't do it on betawikiversity and oldwikisource. For example, the word Шаблони is Templates in Ukrainian and Bulgarian. They are incubating on betawikiversity. So you have seen using this two sites is uncomfortable. On the other hand, there're prefixes Ws for Wikisource and Wv for Wikiversity on Incubator (you can check it yourselves). So I propose to move betawikiversity and oldwikisource to Incubator. AtUkr (talk) 11:14, 23 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Moving betawikiversity's incubating path to incubator might be indeed senseful. Although, moving oldwikisource seems to be a bad idea (mainly because of the proofread extension). It seems rather better to me, to get rid of Wikisource's subdomains and move all content to the central oldwikisource. Vogone talk 12:00, 23 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Moving BetaWV to Incubator (alternatively - to let contributors choose between Incubator and BetaWV, though that would probably just to lead to disputes if a test-community is divided in their opinion about where to go; or if there are 2 communities unaware of each other) is a good idea, because of Incubator's better support to separate between different languages (as you mention), and recently I also heard we had better RTL support. Note that such a proposal failed 5 years ago: Proposals for closing projects/Closure of Beta Wikiversity.

Moving OldWS is not so viable. Problems with the ProofreadPage extension could probably be overcome, but nevertheless annoying. It would also maybe have been preferable if Wikisource had not split into multiple subdomains years ago; e.g. multilingual books are split between subdomains now. This separation is of course impossible to turn back, but we shouldn't further "separate" by prefixing it into Incubator. --MF-W 13:09, 23 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It would be great to have both Beta Wikiversity and Old Wikisource moved to Incubator. There may be problems with the ProofreadPage extension, but having extensions enabled on a per-testwiki basis is currently planned (though it is not for the early future). --Hydriz (talk) 09:48, 24 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Though, if we decide to get rid of Wikisource's subdomains no Incubator would be needed for this project anymore. Vogone talk 15:26, 24 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, there will be problems with Proofread Page because the Index: and Page: namespaces managed by ProofreadPage has strong naming constraints incompatible with the subpaging system used in Incubator. More, oldwikisource is not only an incubator but also a place that store documentation, discussion pages and JavaScript code shared between Wikisources. It's something like the meta wiki of the Wikisources. So, a simple merge with the incubator is not possible. Tpt (talk) 15:31, 24 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Moving betawikiversity and oldwikisource will be terribly difficult (but problably not unfeasible) and in an other hand I don't understand what is the problem currently. Plus, Шаблони (bg) and Шаблони (uk) are write the same but it's two different words. Cdlt, VIGNERON * ^discut. 15:53, 24 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

2013 discussion

Honestly, I do not understand which problem is supposed to be solved by moving oldwikisource to the Incubator. Wasn't the Incubator intended for new projects instead of old projects? Likewise, I do not understand why some of you object to wikisource being split into per-language editions (with the exception of oldwikisource). Having experience with en.wikisource.org and de.wikisource.org, I found the differences stimulating. de has very strict policies that texts must not be added without having a scan at Commons and that whoever adds texts must also proofread other texts. en appears to be more liberal and welcoming but has more areas that need work. Both approaches developed over time and it would be hard (or pretty upsetting for many contributors) to enforce a merge back to one project. Diversity is good, individual projects can learn from each other but also preserve their culture of handling things. And it helps if one project uses one language. Not everyone masters English or feels easy with English. We see this at Commons where despite all efforts to internationalize tons of texts many who do not speak English do not feel comfortable. --AFBorchert (talk) 17:06, 24 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't agree at all - on the contrary, I suggest a "change in nick name" for oldwikisource, that IMHO should be called "Common wikisource". :-)

We wikisourcians need a common project to share templates, js scripts, Lua modules, and we need to a neutral environment to test if our work into various source projects complaints with a good standard, or if it is going to a Babel way. Common wikisource id IMHO the perfect environment to develop and test common tools, common standards, common styles, and is the perfect environment too to proofread multi-language books. --Alex brollo (talk) 17:19, 24 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with AFBorchert. I think merging all the subdomain is a terrible and largely unworkable idea. I have no problem with moving the language content from oldwikisource to incubator if the technical issues can be resolved but I also don't see any real need for it.

That said, I think renaming oldwikisource is a good idea, albeit I would change it to Multilingual Wikisource (mul.wikisource.org). This has the advantage that we could actually use proper interwiki links to the project at last because mul is an ISO 639-2 code for multiple languages. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 18:17, 26 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No comment on the proposal itself, but this shouldn't be on Meta:Babel. If you're going to keep this proposal here, it belongs either on the Wikimedia Forum or in a Proposals for closing projects request (or two, one for oldwikisource, one for betawikiversity). Might be good to consult the local communities (betawikiversity, oldwikisource, incubator) too. PiRSquared17 (talk) 22:08, 24 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it has now been moved to a RFC. It's possible to do it through closure proposals, but if we really want to discuss this - there or on this RFC page, this should get better prepared (what changed since the beta.wv closure proposal failed in 2008, is it really necessary to further talk about old.ws, etc.). --MF-W 03:45, 25 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the main problems are language coincidences and 'we don't need three sites instead of one'. And ProofreadPage can be switced for all test projects but be used only in test Wikisources. AtUkr (talk) 13:16, 25 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

How should different projects conflict due to language coincidences? --AFBorchert (talk) 13:18, 25 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I partially support this. I think new Wikisource and Wikiversity editions can be put at the Incubator, but Old Wikisource and Beta Wikiversity should stay for interlanguage coordination. I find the idea of an interlanguage place beautiful. I think it should not only be kept, but extended to other projects. Citrusbowler (talk) (contribs) (email me) 13:31, 25 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

We have Meta for interlanguage coordination. AtUkr (talk) 14:30, 25 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. Apart from that, I am in favour of closing betawikiversity and transferring it to incubator. Incubator has been used successfully for Wikivoyage lately. I cannot find a reason why a special incubator for Wikiversity would make any sense. Betawikiversity has stayed behind from the early days of Wikiversity. It should be kept as an archive in order to preserve the links pointing there. As to oldwikisource I cannot tell what to make of this proposal because I am not active in the project.--Aschmidt (talk) 17:15, 25 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

My experience from multi-language-projects (commons and wikidata) makes me strongly oppose any merge of the subdomains of Wikisource. People familiar with the lingua franca gets to much advantages and the culture of the smaller wikis will go extinct. I would fork under such circumstances. -- Lavallen 17:14, 26 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal 1: move Betawikiversity to Incubator

For reasons noted above,

betawikiversity seems well-suited to the incubator; they do largely similar things. The incubator would be an improvement in ways: which is a reason to switch.
oldwikisource needs some tools not available on the incubator. The incubator cannot currently offer that functionality, so it's not worth switching (For a worse solution). 140.247.242.82 20:01, 25 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I know about Proofread extension. What other tools? AtUkr (talk) 13:21, 26 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the mw:Extension:Proofread Page extension adds two new namespaces. It would be a massive annoyance to move that all to Incubator, to figure out how to adapt it to the prefix system, etc. Plus there is no real value in using Incubator's prefix system for Wikisource (file names, e.g., are distinctive, and books written in multiple languages do exist). --MF-W 15:23, 26 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I support the idea of moving Betawikiversity to the Incubator because it looks like the users of Beta really don't mind in adding the new interwikis in "In other languages". Slovene Wikiversity (which was created in March 2012) is not added in Beta's main page and Korean Wikiversity (which was created in February 2013) is not added in Wikiversity's main page.--Biólogo conservacionista (talk) 02:32, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well, compared with the Wikimedia Incubator, betawikiversity is dead. There are only a few users working on their own test projects on betawv, but there's no real community, anymore. So I suppose it would only have advantages for the Wikiversity test projects if they could incubate in a more active and better maintained environment. Vogone talk 17:59, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I propose to change the name of this request for comment to "Request for comment/Move betawikiversity to Incubator" because it looks like that moving OldWikisource is not possible due the incompatibility that exists between OldWs and the Incubator. If the name change happens I think we should vote for moving Beta, but first of course we need to find someone that can do it.--Biólogo conservacionista (talk) 02:14, 12 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I want to move this page to Request for comment/Move betawikiversity to Incubator and I thought that like this is a "popular page" I need the support of the users involved, so I would like you to say your opinions.--Biol. Cons. (talk) 02:46, 18 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wv is also used for disucussions and they are many pages, which are not about incubation. Where these pages should go than?--Juandev (talk) 15:04, 4 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Do we really have nothing else to do than to repeat the arguments AGAIN against this move ? Read up the comments from 5 years ago ----Erkan Yilmaz 14:16, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well, actually, unfortunately nothing has evolved and improved since then... How many new Wikiversities have been created? Compare it to the number of other project raised from the Incubator. Move to the Incubator is actually help to Wikiversity to crank up better development...
— Danny B. 21:14, 10 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is more complex. Wikiversity was founded with a very different vision than that of all the other WMF wikis: it includes learning-by-doing. That is, the work product of Wikiversity is not just content, it is education itself, and that is often what is called "self-directed learning," not through some official curriculum being presented. Wikiversities can and do have curricula and formal studies, but include much besides that, as real education includes much besides that. Policies and practices designed for encyclopedic projects and others with a high value placed on NPOV as covering all content, with notability requirements, etc., don't work well on a Wikiversity, they lead to unnecessary conflict. Beta was designed, among other things, to develop general Wikiversity policies and procedures, but that function was largely lost. The communities are balkanized. This isn't going to happen on Incubator, it should happen on Beta. Beta needs attention from people interested in the Wikiversity *concept.* On en.wikiversity, we manage with extremely few contested deletions, yet we are slowly but surely cleaning up mainspace. We have some articles on topics that are areas of high controversy on Wikipedia. Where conflict has appeared over content on Wikiversity, we have been able to show how to defuse the conflict, because Wikiversity can be neutral by inclusion of all asserted points of view, whereas encyclopedia's exclude non-neutral material. And "non-neutral" is really a matter of opinion. I am not criticizing the NPOV policy of the encyclopedias, it's suited for purpose, though enforcment can be shaky. We avoid the whole problem on Wikiversity, usually. Users who have been highly contentious, elsewhere, are able to cooperate on Wikiversity. So Beta is important, even though a neglected. --Abd (talk) 18:06, 25 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Arguments in favor

Strong support. Incubator is a site to put pages of wannabe-wikis to, Meta is the communication hub. No need for extra site which duplicates existing functions/wikis. Not even speaking about naming issues when names are similar in different languages and other problems which the beta Wikiversity has regarding starting new wikis. Incubator can actually help it to evolve better and faster.
— Danny B. 00:41, 7 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support. Wikiversity Beta is almost inactive. With only fifteen editions of Wikiversity, this is the wiki with less languages (except for Wikivoyage). Having the Wikiversity tests in the Incubator, more people will be involved and more editions will exist.--Biol. Cons. (talk) 02:53, 10 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- Just a small factual note: In fact there is even more Wikivoyages when comparing number of standalone and incubated sites counted together (aka Wikivoyages + Wikivoyages at Incubator vs. Wikiversities + Wikiversities at Beta).
  — Danny B. 21:05, 10 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support Wikiversity Beta is quite a mess and Incubator is the only place that will set things right. Maybe then will more new versions of Wikiversity actually come up. --Hydriz (talk) 06:07, 15 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Nothing changed from last time; Incubator is still better suited for test-projects. --MF-W 00:44, 16 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Per MF-W, Incubator was made for this. Ajraddatz (Talk) 19:09, 17 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support per Hydriz --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 11:37, 23 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support per Zhuyifei1999.--Byfserag (talk) 11:16, 30 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support. per Biol. Cons.--John123521 (talk) 03:54, 1 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support per Danny B. -- Hedoport (talk) 19:34, 3 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support per above. I honestly do not think Wikiversity is serving its purpose very well at all.--Jasper Deng (talk) 08:33, 4 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support no need to create forks of the Incubator just for WS and WV. --Jakob (Scream about the things I've broken) 22:19, 17 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly Support per MF-W. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 11:56, 23 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
And for all opposers, WHY NOT AGREE FAIR USE ON INCUBATOR???--Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 01:24, 9 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it is an US-American right. Not sure whether it would be beneficial to implement that on a project which has no relation to the US except for its server location. Vogone talk 16:57, 9 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support. See #Rebuttals. AtUkr (talk) 08:06, 31 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- And about categories: there are 173 uncategorized pages on Beta (3%). AtUkr (talk) 14:52, 14 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  - Well, if it's impossible to close OldWS, renaming this page to 'RfC/Move betawikiversity to Incubator might be sensible. Maybe some supporters of OldWS think that if they'll vote for closure of BetaWV, OldWS will also be closed. AtUkr^{(talk to me)} 17:07, 28 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support.--DangSunM (talk) 00:06, 25 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support I suggest maybe locking beta.v so that the content exists as it were and then direct users to Incubator, as has been done on other closed proposals. There is very little community at beta.v and since SUL exists, they have accounts at Meta and Incubator anyway. If there is value in OldWikisource, that's a secondary issue. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 06:01, 19 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support but prefer a full scale launch out into the open as a separate project. The Banner (talk) 13:32, 24 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The Banner recently became highly involved on Beta, working to delete much content. The comment above shows no understanding of Beta. Launch of what? Beta is a series of projects in individual languages, defined by category, and the Dutch Wikimedian/Wikipedian community apparently decided recently to clean up the Dutch Wikiversity, i.e., pages in Category:Wikiversiteit. Two weeks ago, there were apparently over 5000 pages in that category. Beta is already in the open, that is, it is its own project, its own user base, can have its own policies, etc., its own Recent changes, its own family of users with email notifications of changes, etc. The activity at Beta actually suggests substantial interest in Beta. Things certainly got livelier there recently! I see that speedy deletion templates I place get fast action, that's a clue that a project is active. --Abd (talk) 21:39, 24 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Could you please stop your harassing and following me around, Abd? The Banner (talk) 22:10, 24 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
AGF, The Banner, I get email notifications of edits to this page, you can see that I was already involved with this proposal. Did I say anything untrue or misleading? I asked a substantive question. You edited your comment to specify "as a separate project," which is still meaningless, since Beta already is a "separate project." What do you mean? --Abd (talk) 02:26, 25 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
As long as the project, in this case, the Dutch Wikiversity, does not have its own set of rules and custodians, we are stuck with custodians from elsewhere who refuse to act against PA-throwing editors like you who have content-wise not a clue what is going on there. The Banner (talk) 02:59, 25 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Aha! Yes, you are stuck with the normal project creation process. Is there any Personal Attack above? If so, I'd be happy to strike it. A new Dutch custodian created a separate Dutch deletion process and operated this, more or less out of the sight of the general Beta community, since it was operated in Dutch. It's not wrong, by itself, though there are some issues with how it was done. A Beta custodian who discovered that over 5000 pages had been deleted asked for a review of this. I did so, and was promptly attacked. (I now know much more about what actually happened, there were some speculations, so my original account wasn't fully accurate, though the sense of it remains.) I did more research and reported, and a request was filed by The Banner that I be blocked. There was opposition, with a sysop from ru.wikibooks and a custodian opposing the block, plus another custodian tried to defuse the conflict, clearly did not think I should be blocked, and was himself attacked. The Russian sysop was attacked and called a "hand puppet." (See the RCA request link below).

There was never any interference with the Dutch project, but process questions were raised outside of that language project, because general Beta issues are involved.

It's very obvious from all this that the Beta community is functioning. There have been three sysops involved in some way or other with this deletion affair. Speedy deletion tags see prompt action. There is an involved Dutch community now, seeking to create improved content; the deleted content was mostly from an inexperienced Wikiversitan who needed guidance and who was given little or none for three years. He has responded with high civility, in spite of some severe provocation and accusations.

The language projects are generally independent. We will need to develop better supervision and organization.

Wikiversity is unique among the WMF project types in that "learning by doing" is a major part of the project goal. This requires different content and behavioral policies than the norm on WMF projects, and we see here what happens when "Wikipedian mentality" -- developed for encyclopedia and other verified/notable content projects, and accustomed to high conflict, collides with Wikiversity. That is why Beta is needed, separate from Incubator. The Dutch community is welcome and there has been no interference, but only some metacomment on the Beta community discussion page, and then spinout from that. The discussion on Wikiversity:Babel The Banner's "refusal to act" is at Wikversity Request Custodian Action, which is still open. --Abd (talk) 14:37, 25 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
And the usual wall of text to deflect the attention on his own actions. Sorry, did not read it. You are just disruptive, here and on the Dutch Wikiversity. The Banner (talk) 20:15, 25 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support EvilFreD (talk) 06:50, 25 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support - the wiki doesn't function and the setup of other language editions is disturbed - Romaine (talk) 21:08, 25 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support - I think Wikiversity should exist, but within incubator. The site never really took off... George.Edward.C (talk) 15:20, 20 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Beta and OldWS should both become sub-projects within Incubator to ensure that new wikis get as much support as possible. Green Giant (talk) 23:39, 4 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Support Beta Wikiversity is a mess. I agree that it doesn't quite meet the standards of being deleted but putting it in the incubator makes sense as a good compromise. Reguyla (talk) 17:12, 4 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly Support Beta duplicates the functions incubator. Beta have no prefixes, this is inconveniently. Some languages have the same words. There is a mess. For exempl: школа (en: school) - have Ukrainian, Belarussian, Serbian, Russian languages. How can we created educational materials for school?! We can found many such examples. On the Incubator we will better develop the projects. There are all unified. As for policy - exists meta-wiki. — Green Zero обг 16:03, 11 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Support lol I just realised that I didn't vote here though I have knew about the RfC since the very beginning. Incubator is much more developed in terms of supporting test wikis. Besides there is indeed that above-mentioned stuff about not using prefixes in b.v. The problem of interlanguage homographs indeed is quite an issue. --Base (talk) 03:05, 12 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Support per above. --Steinsplitter (talk) 11:39, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support The beta wikiversity is nothing compared to the Incubator, the Incubator is well-organized, not like the Beta wikiversity. SleepyMode (talk) 15:07, 27 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Support per above. --Josep Maria Roca Peña (talk) 09:30, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Support According to the site creation log the last Wikiversity was created in 2013. If the goal of Beta Wikiversity is to create new Wikiversities it is failing. --Rs chen 7754 03:11, 18 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support Beta wikiversity is very slow and there are pages without the indication of the language.Incubator is organized and fast, and YOU can create new projects.--Rots vam Duats (talk) 05:52, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Arguments against

Oppose. Wikiversity is useful for teaching resources, and research to stimulate learning. It needs an upkeep but sending to the incubator is not the best way. Also, the language Slovene is actually interwikied from the main page. Sidelight12 (talk) 17:36, 6 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. We had that argument multiple times. Before you encroach on Wikiversity affairs, do you actually know what Wikiversity is for? Hillgentleman (talk) 06:36, 7 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose Je maintiens ma position comme dans la demande précédente. Crochet.david (talk) 19:37, 14 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose Read my and other users' arguments from back then, ----Erkan Yilmaz 15:31, 15 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. Incubator is good for new project but not Wikiversity. Any users can upload files and use in Wikiversity BETA. Although Incubator guides it to Commons, it has limit. Because Wikiversity contains many teaching resources, researches, etc. Also, these cannot be interconvertable. I agree with above opinons. --Sotiale (talk) 14:30, 19 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- Why can these files not be on Commons? --MF-W 15:11, 19 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  - Well, uploads like the most recent ones (1, 2, 3) without any copyright information, description etc. would not survive for long at Commons. --AFBorchert (talk) 22:32, 19 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    - As well as they should not (or even must not) survive on Beta. Proper content licensing and tagging is the basics of dealing with content on Wikimedia projects.
      — Danny B. 01:01, 26 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      - Indeed, beta.wikiversity has to my knowledge no Exemption Doctrine Policy and consequently all uploads should go right away to Commons, i.e. local uploads should be disabled as on the Incubator. This should be done even if betawikiversity is not moved to the Incubator as the individual projects that are started at betwawikiversity are expected to eventually be moved into a separate project. This would be easier if the images would already be at Commons. I just note that nobody cares about these uploads at betawikiversity much like on many other small wikis. The samples I refered to have been deleted. But the most recent uploads come likewise without licenses: 1, 2, 3. Hence, I would strongly suggest that firstly betawikiversity disables local uploads and goes through all local files and deletes everything that has no license before this mess gets mass-transfered to Commons because of a possible move to the Incubator. --AFBorchert (talk) 06:58, 26 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        Wouldn't it be simpler for Beta to adopt an EDP, instead of setting up a mass deletion process that would merely irritate many users, for zero improvement in educational value? The essential issue is Fair Use. Commons doesn't allow Fair Use, period. Wikiversity needs it. Requiring that all files used on Beta be licensed for unrestricted free re-use (by for-profit re-users that might not so easily claim Fair Use) damages the educational purpose of Beta, which is why en.wv has an EDP and allows Fair Use, albeit with restrictions. Anyone could propose an EDP on Beta, and this isn't the place to decide it. --Abd (talk) 19:20, 28 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Much chengs .Please refer to Special:RecentChangespage. --安可 ‧對話（中文維基百科用戶） 09:34, 29 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- What do the RecentChanges actually have to do with this proposal? All these changes could theoretically also take place on the Incubator. Regards, Vogone talk 16:34, 29 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. It is difficult to attract more people make their research and use so many teaching resources, researches from Wikiversity. --Great Brightstar (talk) 19:37, 29 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have joined in Incubator, but I found it is kind of difficult to create, edit or use some templates in some Incubator sites.--Great Brightstar (talk) 14:35, 6 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well, then that might be because you tried to copy a complex template from another wiki, which in turn depended on several other templates. Or css styles. --MF-W 03:20, 7 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think so. --Great Brightstar (talk) 21:49, 12 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I also think maybe oldwikisource can be move to inclubator, but beta wikiversity should not. --Great Brightstar (talk) 21:49, 12 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It was already explained why this would be a bad idea. Vogone talk 14:41, 13 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose I've read the reasons for opposing back then and those above. Like Wikipedia, Wikiversity, including Beta, can use copyrighted images, with limits, as aids to learning, teaching, and research, even original research. These are NOT allowed on Commons. Even Public Domain images from NASA have been deleted from Commons. I agree with each of the reasons and oppose, oppose, oppose. --Marshallsumter (talk) 21:00, 3 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. I don't think this suggestion is helpful!Leutha (talk) 22:11, 3 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose Betawikiversity serves an important role in developing multilingual educational resources and provides a supportive environment to develop new language sites such as the recently launched Korean Wikiversity. These (repeatedly submitted) proposals do not address the specifics of the function that Beta serves. --mikeu ^talk 01:57, 15 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Beta has more functions, so cant be simply moved to Incubator. It is also the place for communictation and creating politics (than you should consider to move its part to Meta).--Juandev (talk) 05:00, 19 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I think this discussion here is about the incubating part of the wiki. The other part which you just mentioned sadly became dead in the past few years. Furthermore, I doubt the incubator community would be reluctant also to provide space for these discussions about Wikiversity if ever needed again. And if a separate wiki for that is really needed one could also discuss about leaving betawv open but just to move the incubating part to the Wikimedia Incubator so that at least the Wikiversity test projects could benefit from the advantages over there. Regards, Vogone talk 13:51, 19 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose Wikiversity is different from Incubator, Wikipedia or Wikibooks. It has it's own vision. --BB9z (talk) 06:53, 11 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- Incubator serves as a platform to develop all Wikimedia projects (discounting Wikisource which is from historical reason still separated) thus supports visions of all Wikimedia projects including the Wikiversity.
  — Danny B. 00:56, 26 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose Well, I don't think it's good idea. --by Revi_DCMG at 11:24, 8 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- For reasons? --MF-W 12:44, 8 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Forgive me for 10-months late reply, but there's no reason in fact - just I don't think it's a good idea. — revi ^☏ 11:23, 8 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Wikiversity is radically different from the rest of the WMF projects. Most projects are encyclopedias, or have very limited scope. One cannot judge the relative success of Incubator and BetaWV by the numbers of projects that are approved, because there are necessarily going to be many more language 'pedias than Wikiversities, for quite some time (Eventually, there will be a Wikiversity for every 'pedia). Inclusion policies, however, are quite different on a site that creates educational materials and "learning by doing," than on a project solely building textural content, and especially content required to be NPOV. Educational materials may express points of view, they might even be designed to advocate a point of view. I'm only familiar with en.wv; we satisfy WMF neutrality policy by inclusion of various points of view, rather than by requiring all materials to be NPOV, which is appropriate for an encyclopedia limited to one article per topic. We present the materials in a neutral way. As part of the process of building resources on Wikiversity, pages may stray from NPOV, and only become neutral when others with differing points of view begin to participate in them, or when editors who are accustomed to standing for NPOV participate. As a result of our policies, deletion debates are rare on Wikiversity, as is the blocking of users, and those who are building the community, instead, move toward organization of materials and the channeling of behavior, that might be disruptive on other wikis, into constructive activity. I doubt that a new Wikiversity would be readily started on a site dominated by encyclopedic thinking, which is very different from the academic thinking normal for a real university, or for Wikiversity. --Abd (talk) 19:09, 28 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I don't see how Incubator is a site dominated by encyclopedic thinking; after all, it hosts nascent versions of Wikiquote, Wikinews and even Wikibooks. Differing policies between the different projects are well catered for on Incubator. As I see it, this proposal is more of a technical one than anything else. This, that and the other (talk) 11:00, 24 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose – Per Abd. I know him well enough to know that he has Wikiversity's mission and best interests in mind. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 13:02, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Currently, English Wikiversity has its own Wikijournal subproject. However, Wikijournal is proposed to become a full-fledged project. Spinning Wikijournal off would affect interests in Wikiversity. Nevertheless, some or many courses in English Wikiversity have terribly aged. The Japanese Wikiversity was proposed to be closed. The consensus on the proposal was divided. Those reflect declining interests in Wikiversity.
I am unsure how interested the Incubator editors are in Wikiversity. As said by Rschen7754, the Korean Wikiversity was the latest Wikiversity created in 2013. Since then, there haven't been any other Wikiversities created. There are still ongoing proposals for new Wikiversity language sites, yet none of them has become officially a wiki. As this proposal is neither closing nor deleting Beta Wikiversity, ~~I won't oppose moving Beta Wikiversity to Incubator. However,~~ this proposal has been ongoing since 2013. I believe that this proposal is too late to receive support from voters anymore. If this proposal is closed as "unsuccessful", but then Beta Wikiversity does not receive activity since, maybe we can revisit the proposal some other time. --George Ho (talk) 00:18, 16 May 2017 (UTC) Moved from "neutral". --George Ho (talk) 17:08, 16 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Change to ~~weak oppose~~ - After reading Samuele2002's latest comments, I think we can keep Beta Wikiversity for now. No prejudice to re-proposing the merger in the newer RFC subpage. --George Ho (talk) 17:08, 16 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Change to oppose - Recently, a Phabricator task request to create Hindi Wikiversity was made after approval, indicating that Beta Wikiversity can have value and should be retained. Also, after helping out a user who had difficulties writing/typing English language, I had to direct one user to one of v:en:English courses, where he can learn English well. I realize that Beta Wikiversity may be needed for more language sites that deserve to be full-fledged. Also, more Wikiversity sites should have their own English courses for those wanting to learn English and wanting to write English Wikipedia. --George Ho (talk) 06:24, 24 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Neutral comments

It is kind of disappointing that we have such a duplication of efforts. But right now I feel like that as long as both projects have healthy community which is able to maintain the new projects in them, the merger is not strictly necessary. vvv^t 06:27, 19 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Although I made my !vote above, I think it is telling that beta.v has no news for over a year and the last thing it posted was this discussion. Similarly, if you move down the news from the main page, there are multiple proposals here on Meta to shut down beta.v. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 06:08, 19 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Rebuttals to concerns raised in this and earlier discussions

Read and compare: Proposals for closing projects/Closure of Beta Wikiversity

to User:Crochet.david: language coincidences don't exist on Incubator (compare with Beta Wikiversity). And for interwikis you can use [[project:code:article]]
to User:Saeed.Veradi: we don't propose to close ALL Wikiversities. We want to move only Beta Wikiversity.
to User:McCormack: there're no much content to transfer. Beta has only about 5,900 articles and about 400 images.
to User:Darklama: Meta and Incubator are working more succesfully than Beta Wikiversity. And mailing lists can exist without Beta.
to User:Juan de Vojnikov: Wikiversity Beta is still an environment for international communication and still used for the developing of the Wikiversity policies. We can do this on Meta, can't we? About no.2: how can I create a disambiguation for categories?
to User:Erkan Yilmaz: Beta has successfully "breeded" 4 new Wikiversities. Incubator has ''breeded'' 65 new projects. And there is Meta for interlanguage communication.
to User:SB_Johnny: the same as has been said to Crochet.david.
to User:Aphaia: do you know about existing of Incubator and Meta?
to User:Assassingr: well, you have enough arguments now, haven't you?
to User:JWSchmidt: the Wikimedia Foundation Board created all Wikimedia projects. Does it mean that we can't close any project? No.
to User:Eadthem: You've never heard about Incubator? So how can you have an opinion about this?
to User:Dovi: why do you think that BetaWV is better than Incubator?
to User:Hillgentleman: VasilievVV's opinion:1. It's duplicate of Wikimedia Incubator 2. It's worse organized than Wikimedia Incubator (no prefixes) Your answer: 1. No. 2. May be or may be not. There're all your arguments!
to User:ZaDiak: every test wiki on Incubator has it own rules, hasn't it? And why do you think that Incubator is chaotic?
to User:Bertinho: we speak about closure of BetaWV, not about closure of all Wikiversities.
to User:Teemul: we have Meta for this.
to User:Guillom: maybe Beta wikiversity will die in the end because it won't be useful any more. This time has come.
to User:Herbythyme: read all above. No another comments.
to User:Cormaggio: I will quickly become angry!!! Beta=Meta+Incubator. We have Meta and Incubator. Why do we need BetaWV?
to User:Tmnk: we don't propose to close ALL Wikiversities.
to User:Ral315: Meta and Incubator are more useful than Beta, aren't they?
to User:Robert_Elliott: you can do this on Meta.
to User:-jkb-: the same as has been said to Dovi.
to User:Vchorozopoulos: the content of BetaWV will be moved to Incubator and Meta.
to User:Emesee: centralized Incubator is more active and more comfortable for incubating.
to User:Monobi: the same as has been said to SB_Johnny.
to User:Ladykosha: no arguments, no comments.
to User:Roberth: Beta Wikiversity has no more activity and content now. See it here.
to User:Johney: no arguments, no comments.
to User:Bduke: are you pursuaded by the arguments above to close it?
to User:Srhat: language coincidences ae often on Beta. So it isn't organised very well.
to 78.165.158.53: Incubator and Meta are more active.
to User:Jusjih: do you know about existing of Incubator Wikimedia?
to User:OhanaUnited: Hillgentleman was wrong.
to User:Consta: why do you think that new Wikiversities can't be developed on Incubator?
to 196.30.123.2: why we have to divide? Let all be together.
to User:Mu301: Incubator exists for this.
to User:Ilaria: no arguments, no comments.
to User:Moulton: have you ever heard about Test Wikipedia?
to User:ゆいしあす: BetaWV is not OldWS.
to User:Jayvdb: read below.

Project	Articles	Total edits	Active users	Existence	Projects created	Projects for year
Incubator	58207	1522886	278	7 years	80	11.4
BetaWV	5870	155564	52	7 years	11	1.6
OldWS	14814	380485	46	8 years	13	1.9

AtUkr (talk) 13:26, 30 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This is a list of BetaWV's users who had some kind of activity within the last 30 days.

User	Actions in last 30 days
26 Ramadan	2
Ad Huikeshoven	1
Amilton de Cristo MISSIONARIO	1
Aoke1989	1
~~Asssssssholelihuang~~	7
AtUkr	12
BB9z	90
CommonsDelinker	2
Crochet.david	22
EdwardsBot	5
Emerita Elizabeth	1
Gabrielchihonglee	9
Great Brightstar	3
GreteSuurorg	1
Gwjx	12
Hanteng	6
IDesireJustice	9
Jasper Deng	1
Jon Awbrey	21
Joneslik	1
KaidoKikkas	10
Lauri Laht	2
Liuxinyu970226	1
Liz	1
Madis Sarapuu	1
MagicQQ	25
Mari-Liis Kanter	1
Miguel2706	2
MorrisMand	1
Pratyya Ghosh	3
RaivoTammus	1
Rviilas	1
Shangkuanlc	7
Sotiale	3
Sportsguy17	4
Srekkaro	1
Steinsplitter	2
The duke	4
Timbo1976	1
Timboliu	1,569
Tomkoolen1996	5
ToomasJuhkov	1
Tracerneo	1
Wasami007	19
செல்வா	1
傅雷中学	3
飛翔520	35

AtUkr (talk) 16:16, 13 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Projects are uncomparable. Incubator will have logically more users and released projects.--Juandev (talk) 17:47, 14 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Moves to close Proposal 1

Procedural concerns

So, it appears that the proposer here went gone back and "rebutted" -- often without new argument or evidence -- every opposing comment on the old project closure discussion, when many of those commenting back then will not even see this discussion. Shall we notify all of them that they were mentioned here? It seems this proposal was not made with careful awareness of Closing projects policy, which actually suggests Beta wikiversity as a place to move content from closed projects of type 2. See below for a fatal flaw in this RfC. --Abd (talk) 19:40, 28 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This proposal violated Closing projects policy, which is a strict WMF policy, not merely a community-generated policy. While the community may advise the WMF, project closure is not a community decision, the policy is explicit on that. The policy, adopted in March 2013, explicitly required the proposer to classify the project as Type 1 or Type 2. A lot of editor time would have been saved if the problems had been initially realized and this RfC immediately closed or at least suspended. Probably project closures should be filed, if they are going to be filed, under Proposals for closing projects, not under general RfC. The proposal was originally made on Meta:Babel, 23 June 2013, apparently.[1] It was copied here. Project closure proposals can be highly disruptive, and I suspect that this is why the Foundation created strict policy.
The closure discussion was added to Beta Wikiversity Announcements and the Beta sitenotice August 4, 2013. There was a link with no explanation or signature added to Beta on June 28, five days after this discussion started. The editor adding the link has only that single edit to Beta, and is a relatively low-edit user globally. I assume that was not the proposer. Clearly the proposer did not follow policy, nor did the user who assisted the user by creating this RfC. This is really a project closure proposal, it was not so described, and it looks like the link on Beta may not have been noticed until August. That, by itself, is a fatal flaw in this proposal.
This is a Type 2 closure. What happens to Type 2 closures? Among other possibilities, they are to be moved to ... Beta Wikiversity.
This RfC is obviously not going to generate a consensus to close Beta or anything, even if the fatal flaws in the proposal could be fixed, and they can't be fixed. A foundational flaw in a proposal, if not immediately fixed, can mean that all comment collected may be inadequately informed. I happened across this RfC today, and commented. Had I noticed the timing and the history and the policy first, I'd simply have closed this thing. It's totally ready for it, there was no other comment since December 8, and that was just a question. --Abd (talk) 21:16, 28 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure how a plain unbinding request for comment can harm any policy at all, sorry. This makes no sense really. Vogone talk 22:20, 28 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This is not clearly relevant to the motion to close, so I responded on Talk. Please, will someone either close this RfC or reject the motion to close. --Abd (talk) 02:05, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Abd:Please, also answer my question. Thx.--Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 02:24, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

What question? I looked. Carefully. There seems to be no question asked by this user of me. I do see a comment, added at the bottom, below. I'll respond to that, it actually demonstrates a point I've been making. --Abd (talk) 03:21, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Also, Per SRCU archives (see also 1, 2), why we need a wiki that can use lots of SOCKPUPPETS???--Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 02:35, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There have been socks and/or spammers on most wikis. This is no reason to close the project. However, I disagree with some points of Abd's proposal here. Closing projects policy is a policy, but was created by the community and the community-based committee LangCom, after being approved by the Board (e.g. see wmf:Resolution:Language Committee Charter). Note that even some members of the Language Committee, such as User:MF-Warburg, have supported this proposal. I assume they understand this policy more than I do. I am not sure whether the proposal should be here or under proposals for closing projects, but I think the discussion is valid.

"Among other possibilities, they are to be moved to ... Beta Wikiversity." Clearly this is circular. If we will always follow the policy down to the letter, than maybe this is correct, but I think it's reasonable to be able to discuss the future of this project and modify the policy to fit the outcome later.

Meta is very slow, and it takes a while to get significant input. Re to your (Abd's) oppose: I don't think the difference in policies like NPOV would hurt Incubator or test-Wikiversities. WIkivoyages generally have different policies, but are doing fine on Incubator. No comment on the proposal to move Beta to Incubator itself, however, just like before (22:08, 24 June 2013 (UTC)). PiRSquared17 (talk) 03:27, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, PRS, the policy was created by the community, but adopted by the WMF board, and there is specific procedure set up. Once upon a time, and apparently in the view of many users, an RfC could actually decide to close a project. It's still possible it could, because policy does not actually require a Proposals for closing projects subpage, though one could think so. (But the RfC was explicitly out-of-policy on other grounds.) That subpage is routinely used, has numerous proposals open. So this RfC was out of place unless it was just a discussion.. Did those commenting here know that this couldn't result in closure? Did the user who proposed this know that all the work he put into adding extensive "evidence" here was useless? I.e, another request would need to be created? Do we care about the waste of time and effort?

I'm not sure what it means that a member of Langcom supported the proposal. Was he aware of the defects in the notification requirement? Was he even thinking about this? His comment termed it a "good idea," but only from one point of view, and he did not seem to be aware of the more recent 2010 attempt to close Wikiversity, which was also done by RfC. (Yes, I know that was an en.wikiversity closure, not Beta, per se. It was generally poorly-informed, being filed by, ah, don't get me started! As I pointed out, the closer there was explicit that the venue was improper, but that the RfC had been allowed to remain open because so many had already commented. However, this is now six months after the start of this RfC. I pointed out that it should never have been opened, we do not ordinarily encourage RfCs to be filed like this, just to hold preliminary discussions. But maybe I'm wrong about this. An RfC to close a project is, if the project has support, likely to generate a lot of comment! Nevertheless, comment had essentially stopped. This RfC was dead, until I found it and commented and then requested closure. It appears that there are some users who are making a crusade out of closing Beta. I find that totally odd. If they want to start a Wikiversity and need to use facilities at Incubator, nobody is stopping them. Those could be amalgamated by reference if they get enough stuff together and need more than is in one place. But Beta has active users. It is not at all like projects that have been successfully closed. Are active users making this request? The proposer has very modest activity there.

What I see below is that MF-W actually agrees with my position that this RfC would not be adequate for a decision. But he apparently thinks it's fine that we discuss it here. That could be fine, were this RfC not misleading as presented. I'd bet that most of those commenting thought this could actually create a decisive consensus.

Some have responded as if I had made the claim that we can't hold a discussion, as if I'd claim that policy prohibits discussion. That would be silly. However, where we discuss is important, and how.

As to the administration problem, I'm highly experienced on en.Wikiversity, and I've been a sysop there for substantial periods. I know what happens when global sysops don't realize the unique policies of Wikiversity, it can take some time to educate them. Don't get me wrong: I appreciate the work that global sysops do, and there have been times when we were short on available local sysops. When I say that policies on Wikiversity are very different, I do know what I'm talking about. Our goal is education, and that includes the education of our users, who are not merely providers of content, but also learners-by-doing. We can take and use what would appear to be to a normal Wikimedian as total nonsense. Imagine someone put up a contemporary, self-written w:Jabberwocky. What would happen? On Wikiversity, we know what to do, and we do it routinely and without problems. To others, it can look like vandalism, and, on another project, it might actually be vandalism. Kids scribble on stuff. On Wikiversity, if possible, we take their contributions, place them appropriately, and praise and welcome them, and show them how and where they can scribble to their heart's content. And when the "color outside the lines," we gently guide them back. It took one user some time before he stopped accidentally putting his writing in mainspace instead of in his user space. So it took a few minutes to move a few pages. He was worth it. Learning wikitext and wiki cooperation at about seven years of age, apparently.

I made this comment here because PRS, on the Talk page, explicitly requested I respond. Otherwise I would not continue to debate an issue after proposing a close. Instead, I'd wait for the closure request to be accepted or rejected. It is already clear what the outcome will be here. If, however, nobody agrees with me, and nobody closes this, well, people are free to waste their time if they want.

I've seen no actual opposition to a close. Just argument about how I proposed it. --Abd (talk) 03:21, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Nope, too bureaucratic, that's pure wiki-bureaucracy for the sake of it. Oppose move on the basis that a LangCom member has already commented here, and RFC's general-purposeness covers a wide range of centralized discussions enough that it can serve any purpose better than standard policy discussions. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 08:26, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This here is a request for comments, not a request for decision. The page was created by someone who didn't ever comment on it out of a section of Meta:Babel, probably in order to enable longer and more decicated discussion about it. I don't think the Closing Projects Policy prevents to discuss the existence of the wikis outside of closure or deletion requests; especially if these wikis (like BetaWV) play an important role in the process of opening and closing projects itself. Should discussion at some time show that a large majority of the community wants to implement the idea on which this page was based (=Wv test-wikis on Incubator instead of Beta), then ways can be found to implement that, maybe through a PCP request, maybe through a different form of discussion. The CPP is no constitution, but a method. --MF-W 00:08, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That's true, the closing projects policy never explicitly prohibits discussions about closing certain wikis from taking place in venues other than the normal proposals for closing projects page, so one more reason to oppose the move as unnecessary and support this RFC as being completely in line with current policy. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 01:18, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Looks and sounds we had to {{ping}} some Official Staff to decide this proposal. e.g. @Sue Gardner:--Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 10:56, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This user actually has a request to support this project closure on his user page, it's apparently that important to him, which I have difficultly understanding. If he'd explain what is so important to him, maybe I could understand. Yet he doesn't understand that the approach to Staff would be premature, the policy requires a community discussion with a specific form and following stated rules, first. Basically, he thinks, it appears, that this discussion would be adequate to feed the decision process, when that process is clearly established, by the community and ratified by the WMF Board, and this discussion is not what is needed. MF-W does have it correctly understood above. If there were a consensus here, or anywhere, or even without that consensus, then someone could start a Proposals for closing projects page and follow the policy, and then a decision could be made. It would not be Sue Gardner, perhaps the user should actually read the policy.

However, from this discussion, we can tell that the CPP would fail. It would be yet another waste of time. And, as it stood, it apparently convinced this user that a decision could come out of this. And he apparently still thinks that, even though there is far from a consensus for project closure. --Abd (talk) 03:21, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Second {{ping}} everyone:

This user, if I haven't any issues, he's an indefinitely banned user (who wanna say why?), has never reflected his own past and quarrel with me.
"If he'd explain what is so important to him, maybe I could understand." I also wanna transliterate it as "If he'll explain how a talent I must contribute with lots of sockpuppets, maybe I'll change my vote to oppose."
Should I add the en:Template:Calm_talk here?
His edits on that wiki, errrrrrrr... See namespaces: 35 "User talk:"s, 21 "Wikiversity:" and a "User:"
1. Also, my edits are only 5 {{subst:welcome}}s. So we're contributing a wiki that "has free useful education resources". Hehehehehe......

--Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 07:09, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Your response isn't anything more than an ad hominem. Abd was simply wondering why you're advocating Wikiversity Beta's closure so strongly. Asking to know your rationale for wanting Wikiversity Beta closed so strongly is a valid thing for him to do in this RfC, especially since sound reasoning is supposed to matter more in RfC's than numbers alone. Although you have the right to not give Abd an answer, responding with ad hominems reflects poorly on you. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 13:30, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well it was perhaps the wrong response, but Abd's tone, especially when speaking in the third person ("This user...doesn't understand that the approach to Staff would be premature") in a response directly underneath his subject's post, often appear condescendingly self-detached to others not familiar with it, even though he might mean well. And to curb this I have tried to explain to him the normal course of human dialogue, what is expected of 'normal' posters here on Meta as well as other websites, but my efforts have mostly been in vain. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 16:59, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You should consider Abd's tone in the context of Liuxinyu970226's tone. Despite the animosity between you and Abd, this all rotates back to Liuxinyu970226 being an aggressive user. View and translate Liuxinyu970226's zhwiki userpage. Here's what Google Translate says it says in English. That userapge contains clear signs of Liuxinyu970226's aggression and divisiveness. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 18:22, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that bringing up Abd's block or criticizing his lack of activity on Beta is unwanted here. This is a RfC on Beta Wikiversity (and formerly also "Old" Wikisource). Discussing bans is not constructive imo. Let's get back to discussing the issue. PiRSquared17 (talk) 18:41, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I had already agreed that Liuxinyu970226 provided the absolute wrong response to Abd, history set aside. I doubt Abd could actually read zh at the moment of his writing, so the only conclusion I could draw was that his original comment referred to the userpage located here saying "PLEASE PLEASE AND PLEASE SUPPORT USER:ATUKR TO MERGE BETAWIKIVERSITY INTO INCUBATORWIKI", which comment about likely aggressive user's userpage, again, was likely to provoke an adverse response from said especially aggressive user. Anyway the fact remains that bringing up the issue of said user's userpage is now driving the thread off-topic and into the ground. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 22:58, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Suggested outcomes, 2014

As this is posted in the requests for comment discussion venue, I would like to discuss what it exactly means to "close" Beta Wikiversity should that arise as an outcome in the future. Oftentimes in the context of the multiple discussions currently at the proposals for closing projects page "closure" of a wiki typically means to lock it to prevent further changes to it except for stewards, but the central point of this proposal has been more to "merge" existing content into another wiki. I would like a clarification on what "closure" and "merge" really mean in the context of large-scale wikis, as well as in the context of RFC discussions which allow for alternative solutions than simple locking of a database. For the supporters of the close:

We could just lock it from further editing except for stewards and use Special:Import to transport content to incubator.wikimedia.org
We could also merge content into incubator.wikimedia.org whilst still allowing editing at Beta Wikiversity so as to make the process smoother and less intrusive for our end users, and when the last of the content is finally finished we redirect it to Incubator.
A solution I had also thought up was moving it as a subdomain of Incubator, such as incubator.wikiversity.org or incubator.wikimedia.wikiversity.org and redirect the current Beta Wikiversity there so as to preserve any current interwiki links.

We should ask ourselves what kind of content/information would be lost in the process of the merger. A related issue that has come to my attention is the proliferation of the various images on that wiki, to which I might be able to address by initiating a process of moving them to Commons under the appropriate licenses. I've contacted a local administrator there on how best to handle them. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 05:35, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It has been explained why moving Wikiversity images to Commons is not a general solution. Wikiversity needs to allow Fair Use images, which are not allowed on Commons, because of the function of Commons. One good thing that has come out of this RfC is a realization that Beta doesn't have an Exemption Doctrine Policy, as is required for wikis which allow Fair Use which would be the intention at Beta. That will be fixed. As we found on English Wikiversity, fixing the problem of improperly licensed images takes quite a lot of work, and it takes time, if damage is not to be done to the educational resources and user community. Improper licensing of possibly Fair Use images is not a legal emergency, it creates no risk to the WMF, only some possible work to respond to a takedown notice from a copyright owner. Complicated issue. Bottom line, this is covered by EDP, which English Wikiversity has. --Abd (talk) 00:31, 31 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You're taking my words out of context here. It's been quite obvious as one who participates on Commons that the Commons Wiki does not host fair use images, and I will obviously do a check for the proper licenses before deciding to move it up to Commons or not. Reminding me to do so is quite patronizing. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 01:06, 31 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I absolutely fail to see the point of the fair use pictures as an issue. It isn't that hard to work around that.

And I do see the problems of complete outsiders interfering with Wikiversity in other languages, to the point of seeing the Dutch Wikiversity going to waste due to an outsider. Every option that brings Wikiversity closer to a more independent status (i.e.: with its own administrators/custodians and not depending on outsiders) would be beneficial. The Banner (talk) 17:15, 25 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Proposer's comments

It was difficult to understand Abd's comments with my English :). I must say I am unpleasantly surprised. I have outlined one (in my opinion, the most important) argument at the beginning of the discussion. A few more have been added by other users. As for the comments about the violation of Closing projects policy, this request for comments was created to ask the community about the expediency of closing the project to save time. I didn't want to distract users from editing, but I believe that the creation of new projects will be more comfortable in Incubator. I understand that I had to do this before, here is my mistake, so I chose the main reasons for the closure of Beta Wikiversity.

Beta Wikiversity was created for the original design of rules, format, and sample articles of Wikiversity. After completion of this work and the beginning of the first language editions project become unnecessary.
Further development of Wikiversity rules must continue on Meta-Wiki, which has been created for this.
Wikimedia Incubator from the very beginning has become a place for new language versions of projects. The prefix system missing on Wikiversity Beta allows to escape the language coincidences and to move a page to separate site even if page is uncategorized. If the page at Wikiversity Beta is uncategorized (or categorized incorrectly) it will automatically stay on Beta (or it wiil be imported to other language edition). In addition, the names of some categories may be the same in several test projects.
New Wikibooks are successfully created on Incubator. Wikiversity is known as a fork of Wikibooks.
Uploading files is prohibited on Incubator. This prevents the creation of unlicensed files that will help to keep necessary files.
There's better RTL support on Incubator.
Different formats of Incubator and Beta don't enable to help with creating new Wikiversities to users who have experience in creating new sites.

P.S. Abd has only 57 edits on Beta's talk and discussion pages and 1 edit on his talk page on Incubator, where he speaks to bot. Sorry, but I don't know what it means. AtUkr^{(talk to me)} 14:58, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Since some users here seem to think that other users are the topic here, and the original proposer of this idea is one of these, I'd suggest looking at this request on Beta, dated June 14, 2013, before this closure proposal. He never responded to a totally appropriate question from a Beta administrator. Briefly, it looks to me like the closure request here was payback. I'm seeing a drastic lack of understanding on the part of the proposer of how WMF wikis generally work, and especially how Wikiversities work. It is trivial for a non-custodian to get inappropriate pages deleted, I do it almost every day on en.wv, by placing a speedy deletion template, and these are always quickly and easily handled, and someone who wants to unilaterally make deletion decisions based on their own opinion, shouldn't be trusted with custodian tools on a Wikiversity. Wikiversity deletion policy is drastically different from that of other WMF wikis, for major structural reasons.
I am moving other comments of mine in response to AtUkr, not relevant to this RfC, to Talk. --Abd (talk) 18:15, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Well, I see that you also think so :). What about my request for custodianship, it was closed October 29, 2013, that means this RfC couldn't be payback. I think that closing my request was payback. Also I can't understand I do it almost every day on en.wv, by placing a speedy deletion template. So you say that I can place template on Main Page and it'll be deleted, don't you? It;s interesting...
- I have responded to Abd on Talk. AtUkr^{(talk to me)} 15:56, 14 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Revisiting this, 2015

Move to close

@Amire80:, @Antony D. Green:, @Bèrto 'd Sèra:, @Maor X:, @GerardM:, @Jon Harald Søby:, @Karen:, @Arria Belli:, @MF-Warburg:, @Evertype:, @Millosh:, @Baba Tabita:, @SPQRobin:, @Santhosh.thottingal:, @Shanel:, and @ZaDiak: Two years is long enough to discuss this. My preference is stated above and I hope it's what passes but either way, there is no value in leaving open the discussion indefinitely. Can someone please make a final decision on this? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:58, 5 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This is not within Langcom's competence. --MF-W 11:31, 6 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@MF-Warburg: Sorry. Whose job is it, then? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 15:59, 6 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I think it would be proper for the Board to take such a decision. --MF-W 23:23, 7 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@MF-Warburg: Why not? The best reasons for moving are about language support. Currently any proposal to create or close a subdomain of a Project (whether a language code, "simple", or "beta") are – as I understand it – within langcom's scope. The board tries to delegate agency to community committees as much as possible. –SJ talk 20:30, 25 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Sam. Closure and opening of projects follow concrete needs and capabilities of our community, it should be the community to make this decision, and this is my understanding of "Individual Langcom members also take care of the proposals for closing projects." in the intro of Language committee. Alice Wiegand (talk) 15:16, 29 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

So should we leave this proposal here indefinitely? Its been going for 2 years now. If there was an active community then it would have had more than ample opportunity to present its case. I cincur with the recommendation that this be closed and appropriate action taken. Reguyla (talk) 19:58, 29 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

As said on Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard#Move_for_closure_of_a_proposal the Community Engagement team is figuring out details and is going to deal with it. Alice Wiegand (talk) 20:11, 29 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Just to be clear, I also think this should be moved to the incubator. The arguments presented are sensible; incubator's a good place to run beta experiments of all sorts. –SJ talk 05:50, 8 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Please close this discussion Something needs to happen--it's been years. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 05:51, 8 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Heh. Hi, Koavf. What does winding down beta look like? Is there a page there laying out what will be involved? –SJ talk 05:54, 8 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Sj: I don't know that I had thought that far ahead but we could maybe use the Wikivoyage migration as an example. I think that it's not unreasonable to lock beta.wv, then transwiki any active content to Incubator, change some documentation (at beta.wv, Incubator, here, and at individual Wikiversities), and then any meta type content could be mirrored here. I'm not suggesting deleting the domain for the sake of incoming links but there is no rationale for beta.wv to be a separate community. The difference between this and mul.ws is two-fold: on the one hand, the Wikisources all use the PageProof extension which would be cumbersome to implement on Incubator and on the other, there are actually multilingual texts. There is no point in writing a multilingual encyclopedia article or a multilingual repository of quotes but some actually existing texts are themselves in multiple languages, so where would they belong? Not only is this not true for general learning resources like Wikiversity but I don't even know how it could in principle be true. But for the few times when they might be, just post content back and forth between the relevant Wikiversity pages. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 05:58, 8 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Sj: To explain my above comment, in case it wasn't clear: if Anglos want to learn Spanish and Hispanics want to learn English, then they can collaborate on v:Spanish and v:es:Curso de inglés básico but there's no point in having Japanese-language users seeing it all in the same place as well. Does that make sense? Beta.wv was spun off of en.wb as an experiment. It was accepted by the WMF and then it should have been locked, a decade ago. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 06:01, 8 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

┌──────┘
Sure, I remember the history. I'm asking for the migration steps. No point trying to implement this unless there are people ready to do the work involved. Including some past or present users of beta who understand how it's used. If you want to help do this, why not start by asking others to help plan out the migration? A new "beta-wv" incubator project can be created now. Then a checklist is needed: discussion page on beta explaining the idea, a banner on beta; pages migrated, Interwiki links updated; assuming everyone is on board with locking the site, site locked & redirects set up. This took some time to prep for WV also, most of it by the WV community. –SJ talk 06:15, 8 January 2016 (UTC) It looks like AtUkr is around from time to time; if you can reach him, he's already done some of the heavy lifting (checking for activity). Cheers, –SJ talk 07:26, 8 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This sounds like a lot of work with very little to be gained. The participants who actually use the site find it useful, while others seem to object on principal without having participated there. The above discussion looks, to me, like "strong lack of consensus" in 2 1/2 years. @Sj: if this is a move for closure there should be a notice given at all the language:wikiversity community discussion pages. I've done this at v: and beta (in English) but this should be translated and posted sitewide to alert the affected communities. This proposal is so old that most have forgotten that it even exists. Many of us our too busy creating content on our projects to keep up with meta discussions. I have a strong objection to closure without due process. --mikeu ^talk 16:31, 8 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

For an example of multilingual coordination see betawikiversity:International Year of Astronomy/De, betawikiversity:International Year of Astronomy/Cs, and related pages. These were used to plan learning activities for a w:UNESCO and w:IAU initiative. Beta was quite helpful where there are contributors who speak multiple languages and are familiar with the culture of wikiversities in a single community collaborating. This is not simply a "bookkeeping" issue of where it makes the most sense to host the content. If the site is taken apart the community bonds will be broken and the participants scattered. --mikeu ^talk 16:41, 8 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

For multilingual coordination there is this site - Meta-wiki.
— Danny B. 18:51, 8 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks @Mu301:, I agree it should be done with full notice to the affected communities. A banner on beta would be a necessary early step, letting people know this is being seriously considered. @Koavf:, since you are currently keen on this - what is driving your interest? Is it just a desire to see things done in an orderly way? Is there a particular part of wv-incubation that you think will be done better after a move?

It's not clear to me that there's anything wrong with a patchwork approach that isn't entirely consistent. It makes sense that this should only be done if there's enough interest among people who are motivated to a) carry out the migration, b) coordinate with the current users of beta, and c) use the resulting incubator to work on wv ideas and pages. But there are obviously some quite active people including koavf and atukr who have worked on incubator and are interested in this change. –SJ talk 00:07, 10 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Sj. With only 16 edits to this page during all of 2015 many of us on wv projects had assumed that this long dormant proposal was abandoned due to lack of interest. --mikeu ^talk 21:27, 12 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Mu301: Everyone at beta.wv has had ample notice, as most of the notes on v:beta:Main Page are mentioning discussions to shut down beta.wv or newly added editions of Wikiversity. From a technical perspective, transwiki-ing pages to Incubator should not be particularly difficult and since mw:SUL is active on WMF wikis, users are working on beta.wv can seamlessly edit Incubator. The thing that's gained is centralization of resources for users editing small projects: that's why Incubator exists in the first place. Is there a guideline or some documentation somewhere that outlines how due process is not being followed here? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:13, 9 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Sj: Re the closing & moving: Feel free to poke project-moving-experienced Incubator "staff" (@SPQRobin:, @MF-Warburg:, myself) to help with the migration roadmap.
— Danny B. 18:49, 8 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the clarity Danny B. So Justin, to get back to you question that started this section: I think any bold meta editor could close this thread and recommend a specific change, but it's not clear to me how to close it. If the supporters above were all interested in building a better wv incubator within incubator.wikimedia.org, this approaches consensus to move; which would need to be confirmed with renewed communication on beta and the current wv's. If none of them really care that much / rarely use wv anyway, there's no real consensus and this can be closed for now as such. –SJ talk 00:11, 10 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

–SJ talk

Is that even needed? I think one could just as well "deprecate" BetaWV and let future language versions incubate on incubator, while leaving the already active test versions on BetaWV, letting them finish their work. Once BetaWV's activity amounts to zero, one could think about moving the "dead" test Wikiversities without a chance to get an own wiki in the near future over to Incubator. --Vogone (talk) 00:19, 10 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That's a better idea. Have any new language versions start on incubator; and offer to help editors migrate from beta:wv to incubator (since that should be scripted), including for instance interwiki link conversion, so that pl: keeps pointing to pl.wv. Again, only worth starting if there is at least one community of beta.wv editors who are ready to lead the way and migrate their work to incubator. –SJ talk 16:42, 12 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This is a very bad idea, it will only lead to confusion, as it makes it more difficult to find the test-Wikiversity of a language and is prone to cause splits/accidental "doubling" of test-projects, one on BetaWV and one on Incubator. It will also require useless fiddling to adjust the missing.php. --MF-W 15:51, 13 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There wouldn't be any accidental doubling if new development on BetaWV was paused. But like any categorization/classification shift, it's a lot of work, and only worth doing if a group that cares about classification cleanliness (or in this case, expanded incubator functionality) is willing to shoulder all of that work. I don't see that interest, so I agree that this can simply be closed as no consensus. –SJ talk 22:48, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure if this is productive or not. Lack of consensus for years means there is not enough consensus, and it should be closed as no consensus for now and started from the scratch again. And, 'incubator is proper place for incubating test projects' is not a strong argument to move away from status quo. I agree with the opinion 'it's hard-working with no fruits.' — regards, Revi 12:18, 23 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

And it's fairy to see Babel categories conflicts such as Category:User yue vs. Category:User zh-yue because of the historical reasons, and that will have much more hardly works than this? I can't agree with you, as nothing can't be done if you have Operation access. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 03:56, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Virtually everything can be done if you have ops access (ie. reset password even if you don't have email set on account) but practically there is no fruit doing this imo. I still believe this should be started from the grounds again. (ie. Make (2) RfC.) — regards, Revi 09:13, 21 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Next step

@Sj: This discussion is from 2013. I think it should be closed with "No consensus" as the resolution. If you are bothered with the existance of the beta.wikiversity project, is there anything that prevents you from opening a brand new proposal to move the project where you can explain your reasons? Most of the comments on this page are so old that I don't think they are relevant anymore. --Lsanabria (talk) 02:59, 7 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I dont think much has changed about the arguments; they certainly remain relevant. --MF-W 09:42, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Lsanabria, @MF-W, I am bothered only that this request remains open, and some participants were confused about who could implement a possible move. We seem to have clarified that:

People with operations access are willing to help make a change if the communities want it and define how it should happen.
No current group of beta.wv users, or incubator users, or potential future users, have offered to organize a move; this has been a mainly theoretical discussion.
While many of the respondents above (who may or may not have been wv or incubator users) supported a move, they weren't offering to execute it. koavf, AtUkr and MF-W are all prolific editors interested in a move, but I don't know if they have the time to make one happen. (fixing interlang links, fixing babel and other category conflicts, all the details beyond a normal technical move.)
beta.wv editing activity is already quite low, suggesting it may simply not matter.

If noone wants to change 2-4 above, perhaps it's best to close this proposal as "no point in moving until the move solves a specific problem". If interest in Incubator or WV increase significantly in the future, if maintaing beta.wv at any point creates extra overhead, or if a new WV finds beta.wv insufficient for their needs, this can be revisited then. –SJ talk 22:48, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Sj: I am willing to help in moving the content if that's what it takes. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 22:59, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think some Incubator admins (including me) would also certainly be involved. --MF-W 11:53, 19 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like this is not going anywhere. Would it make sense to contact the editors with more than 5 edits in the last 30 days directly (I can help with that)? What would be the next step to take a decision and either move the wiki or close this conversation? --Lsanabria (talk) 18:24, 18 February 2016 (UTC) [reply below -SJ][reply]

Close as Keep betawikiversity or leave open which Keeps betawikiversity - it's a WIN-WIN! --Marshallsumter (talk) 19:20, 18 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Marshallsumter: Are u asking we must also try to fix phab:T54971 for betawikiversity? --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 06:48, 19 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Liuxinyu970226: Out of curiosity, what does that Phabricator ticket has to do with this conversation? --Lsanabria (talk) 13:57, 19 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think he refers to the fact that the solution of that bug is much easier for Incubator than for BetaWV. --MF-W 18:24, 19 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, I do not know enough about the Wikiware involved to suggest a solution, but my limited experience with the Phabricator volunteers indicates they can solve the bug on betawikiversity, even though the bug has been around several years. --Marshallsumter (talk) 21:56, 24 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Marshallsumter: Please document the word "Wikiware" as our software is MediaWiki (you should know I'm working on Translatewiki.net, btw, there have many wiki sites that are not using MW). --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 15:09, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Liuxinyu970226: Here's a couple for you: "In order to facilitate development of new wikiware and to simplify maintenance of existing wikiware, one can rely on methods and tools from software language engineering." V Zaytsev, arXiv preprint arXiv:1107.4661, 2011 MediaWiki grammar recovery and "In contrast to these static and feedback-free sites are those that use “wikiware,” made popular by Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.org)." KA Meyer - Journal of Educators Online, 2007, Does Feedback Influence Student Postings to Online Discussions?. I hope these help. --Marshallsumter (talk) 18:05, 27 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

as per Marshallsumter: Close as

Keep betawikiversity, ----Erkan Yilmaz 14:29, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Erkan Yilmaz: So even if there has a namespace conflicting it's fairy to you?! So even if we should wait for a century before global merging two (or more?!) accounts it's fairy to you?! So even if we cannot kill mo: it's also fairy to you?! --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 15:24, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Lsanabria:, I think this page is confusing enough that the old proposal could be closed a new one started (you can transclude the old discussion). It should summarize

The end result of a move - how would it feel different to editors? And who would be affected (mainly current betawv users, potential future users, devs maintaining the two relevant codebases). Answer the questions raised by TeleComNasSprVen above.
The pros listed so far, including which betawv groups want to switch, and why other communities might want to (e.g., resolving phab:T54971, any other feature requests for betawv).
The cons listed so far, and what could be done about them (e.g., allowing Fair Use images, having a multilingual-wv site [on incubator?], fixing templates, interwikis, redirects). In addition to the specific cons, Mikeu makes good points about the inherent risks in uprooting a current community, so the proposal should indicate why this is worth the effort.
People available to implement a move, and steps involved. So far koavf, MF-W, and Danny B. have all offered. You would also want one or two active betawv editors, to catch all of the details.

That would clear up what's being proposed. At which point you could reach out to the current active users. –SJ talk 21:36, 19 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Sj:

The thing is, I am not proposing to close Beta Wikiversity (but I am not saying it should stay open either) so I am not sure if I should open such a request on my own. Also, there are comments above indicating that this might not be the proper way to request the project's migration to the incubator. What I think I can do is open a new section below including the information you mentioned above and asking if this proposal should be closed with no action or rebooted as a new RFC. We can leave this open for 2 more weeks (or a little more) and then take whatever action comes out of it. I can help with the new RFC if the participants want to open one but I will personally ask for it to be timeboxed. If you are OK with this suggestion and no one else objects, I will proceed with it. --Lsanabria (talk) 17:05, 21 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds sensible Lsanabria, thanks. Both timeboxing (some above have offered to ping current users of the incubators) and doing this as a new section below. Perhaps also refactoring the earlier sections so there are clear "in 2013" "in 2016" top-level sections. –SJ talk 16:23, 27 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Ok @@Sj:: I will move forward and add the pool. Feel free to make any changes you like. -Lsanabria (talk) 05:22, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

What to do with this proposal?

This section is a poll to find out what to do with this proposal. It was openned on 2013 and several arguments have been mentioned since then supporting both options but so far it has not reached consensus to take any actions or to abandon it. To inform the participats, the following table includes a quick recap of some of the arguments discussed above:

Arguments in favor	Arguments against
The incubator already have prefixes for the Wikiversity projects.	It is not clear the problem caused by the existence of Beta WV that would justify the work needed to migrate it.
The incubator has better support to separate different languages.	There is content on Beta WV related to interlanguage coordination and policy definition that might not be suitable for the Incubator.
Meta is already available for any interlanguage coordination needs the Wikiverstity projects might have.	This proposal might not follow the established practices and policies for closing a wiki.
Incubating the WV projects in the incubator will provide a more active and maintained environment than is currently available in Beta WV due to the lack of participation over there.	The community using the project should be the one making this decision and it is not clear that the editors currently contributing to Beta WV are interested in this change.

The options on the table are:

Option #1: Close this proposal with no action and keep Beta Wikiversity as an active project.
Option #2: Close this proposal as too old and open a new one to discuss the idea, providing a summary of topics discussed here and contacting individually any active editors (more than 5 edits on the last 30 days) on Beta WV asking for their input.

This poll is timeboxed and will be open until March 31 and the option will be selected by simple mayority. Please add your signature under the subsection corresponding to the option you prefer.

--Lsanabria (talk) 15:20, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Option #1: Close this proposal with no action and keep Beta Wikiversity as an active project.

+1 ----Erkan Yilmaz 13:58, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
+2 Keep It generally takes 3-5 times to produce significant statistics so I suppose we still have to go through this 1 or 2 more times. --Marshallsumter (talk) 14:53, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
+3 --Param munde (talk) 08:52, 3 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
+4 Keep As I'm +/- active in that beta-wikiversity project, I vote. I'm sorry for voting too late, but I did not see any notice before. --Kusurija (talk) 15:06, 17 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
+5 Keep After official approval of Hindi Wikiversity, a Phabricator task was made to make Hindi Wikiversity a full-fledged language site for the first time since Korean Wikiversity was made in 2013. --George Ho (talk) 06:28, 24 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Option #2: Close this proposal as too old and open a new one to discuss the idea

From this 2 options I choose this. While I believe that the arguments are written by users for 3 years - are still relevant. — Green Zero обг 18:04, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Lsanabria just pointed out that some of the relevant issues in the original discussion (the ability to have fair use images, for instance) have changed. And Green Zero's comment above is one I hadn't seen above: an indication that at least some wv users would prefer to use incubator. So a new discussion makes sense. –SJ talk 18:49, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is that BetaWV is not exclusively a wiki incubator but also covers other aspects. Regarding the incubating part I guess there is absolutely no doubt the incubator extension serves this purpose better, the question is rather if splitting the wiki and therefore also the community (one half to metawiki because it does not belong to the incubator, the other half to incubator because it doesn't belong to meta) is such a good idea. Perhaps implementing the incubator extension on BetaWV could be considered instead, but that would require at least one developer willing to do so. --Vogone (talk) 15:19, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Does this activity with "other aspects" really exist? I can't discern any by looking at the recent changes. --MF-W 01:16, 9 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I think this is a good proposal, but could be refreshed just to make things clearer. — Sam Wilson ( Talk • Contribs ) … 23:27, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Support closing this discussion and producing a summary that clearly states what we're voting to do exactly. Closing beta.wikiversity.org and moving it's function to where? It looks to me like it was already decided to move it to the incubator but... CQ (talk) 14:52, 3 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I support ideas from this proposal and it shoule be re-opened again. --minhhuy ^(talk) 16:10, 9 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Psychoslave (talk) 07:53, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Support--John123521 (talk) 12:57, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Support--Arian ^Talk 10:08, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Support --MohammadtheEditor (talk) 03:47, 29 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Support. As said in the discussion about the original proposal, this proposal is getting too old. We can try a new idea sooner or later if Beta Wikiversity receives less activity than now. Or we can revisit this in another time. --George Ho (talk) 00:21, 16 May 2017 (UTC) See newer comment at Option #1. --George Ho (talk) 06:28, 24 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

I am - active user of Ukrainian Wikiversity (since 2015). I dont see any prospects on the beta.wikiversity.org. It is a Babylon from Holy Bible. No development, all is mixed, often there are linguistic curiosities, because a number of languages may have the same words. Beta.wikiversity.org have no future. Prosperity and successful development of beta.wikiversity.org like a communism - utopia. If beta.wikiversity.org not be migrate to incubator, I've want that only Ukrainian Wikiversity to migrate to incubator, where I and others will develop the Ukrainian project. — Green Zero обг 14:05, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! Could express your support for one of the 2 available options? How to address your concern will depend on what option gets selected. --Lsanabria (talk) 15:01, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This (unsigned, thus trying to face more official) poll and its preceding quick recap are heavily biased and unbalanced. For instance, there is no option to vote for moving to Incubator, although there are 26 supports for that which is almost double to 15 opposes, and the table doesn't mention all arguments. This poll therefore does not have any predictive value at all and in general is useless thus can not be taken as obligatory.
— Danny B. 15:10, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi! I added my signature. Sorry for the omision. :-) This is to find out what to do with this page, not with Beta WV. It has been open for more than 2 years so I think it is time to close it or reboot it. If you believe the recap is not fair to either side, let me know what arguments I missed and I will add them. I didn't include any items no longer applicable (for example Beta does not allow users to fair use images anymore so that point is no longer relevant, etc.) Also, this does not try to have predictive value (statistically speaking) it is just trying to figure out what the people contributing to this page and the community in general wants to do with it. --Lsanabria (talk) 15:20, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- ...Where is this incubator, now? When I google 'wikiversity incubator' I find only pages at beta.wikiversity.org or en.wikiversity.org or meta.wikimedia.org (this page). According to https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Our_projects there is no established incubator space for Wikiversity. I verified that fact by searching for Wv content at incubator.wikimedia.org and found none except this redirect https://incubator.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wv&redirect=no So how much work we talking about here? CQ (talk) 14:52, 3 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  Hello! The current incubator for Wikiversities is Beta WV. The Wv prefix in the Wikimedia Incubator redirects the users to the WV portal page. --Lsanabria (talk) 16:27, 3 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  Also, about the comment next to your vote, no decision was reached. There was no consensus. The vote on 2013 was ~60% support, ~40% oppose. The 2008 proposal was closed as no consensus with ~40 support, ~60% oppose, so the same thing should have been done back then with this request. --Lsanabria (talk) 16:36, 3 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  So my opinion is Option #3: Close as approved, and then create a set of Phabricator tasks for migration. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 12:50, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Option #3: Close as approved, and then create a set of Phabricator tasks for migration

Support. So I add Liuxinyu970226 proposal in available answers, as I would also be more interested with such a solution for Esperanto Wikversity. Maybe minhhuy, CQ, Samwilson, MF-W, Vogone, SJ, Green Zero would like to opt for it too. --Psychoslave (talk) 05:23, 11 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I guess this section defeats a bit the purpose. There are still some unclarified points so I doubt there's anything which could be "approved" based merely on this discussion. --Vogone (talk) 10:41, 11 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. Even more, I am not sure this kind of decision can be taken by simple vote. If I understand the closing projects policy correctly, the arguments must be outlined clearly, all involved parties must be notified and after their comments, the Language committee will make a decision. I offered myself to help draft that if #2 is the option selected. Please specify if you want to close this proposal without action (#1) or if you want to continue with the effor to move away from Beta WV (looks like that is the case) by selecting to open a new proposal (#2). With all due respect, I moved paragraph under the comments section. --Lsanabria (talk) 15:57, 11 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@MF-Warburg: Could you clarify if my understanding of the closing projects policy is correct? --Lsanabria (talk) 16:00, 11 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Psychoslave: you make the second wv-communty (UK, EO) that wants to use incubator. That's a sign that a move might be possible. But an updated proposal should come first, since people have been confused about next steps ==> it's not clear what the Phabricator tasks would be. Lsanabria, thanks for offering to help draft that. I don't know if langcom wants to be involved in the final decision; that would make sense to me — but if they decide that's not their job, the outcome of an RFC can be enough. –SJ talk 22:50, 11 March 2016 (UTC) (Lsanabria, thoughts? :)[reply]
Support Don't ignore that the #Arguments against section (large above) has users that blocked on enwiki, which means their comments are funny. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 23:42, 10 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Outcome

Since most of the support is for option #2, I added a note here asking the Language Committee to close this proposal or to let us know if we can close it ourselves. Once it is closed, I will draft the new one. Sorry for the delay acting on this! --Lsanabria (talk) 15:36, 24 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Value?

May the supporters of beta.wikiversity summarize the value of the project? I see that the dominant edits there are housekeeping ones. --Millosh (talk) 18:27, 15 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm also talking about beta.Wikiversity administrator. I am opposed to this proposal because I think it is advantageous to keep beta.Wikiversity for a variety of reasons: to help create new Wikiversity and to have a special project could stimulate the creation of new Wikiversity (also note that Wikiversity is The project with less language versions). Plus having beta.Wikiversity is easier to monitor the creation of new pages in the various wikiversity hosts on beta.Wikiversity also the beta function is to be a reference point for the communities of various Wikiversity in any language (eg a few months ago there We are coordinated and decided there to edit the Wikiversity logo) both for proposals that relate to the project and to help individual wikiversities in introducing into original searches. In addition, beta.Wikiversity would be the place to test experimentation on the project or to try extensions (eg Education_Program and Quiz) all this if beta.Wikiversity was moved to an incubator would not be possible. --Samuele2002 (Talk!) 12:52, 16 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Samuele is right. It should not be transferred to the Incubator. This is a separate project where new ideas and extensions related to education are tried. It needs to be improved. But moving it is not the right option. If we solve the issue of redirection of beta wikiversity, then it will be a good project. -Jayprakash12345 (talk) 07:13, 17 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Jayprakash12345: So should we not have test Wiktionaries and Wikipedias at the Incubator? Why is this any different? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:47, 17 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The question I have to ask then is this: why was the last Wikiversity site created in 2013? [2] Is beta.wikiversity actually fulfilling its goals? Do you have any data to support this, besides pontification? --Rs chen 7754 18:34, 17 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Rschen7754: Wikiversity has made every effort to fulfill its goals. If you see, they were not approved even after good activity in Chinese wikiversity and Estonian wikiversity. It is the lack of language committee that they consider wikiversity as a failed project. I am quite busy for Hindi wikiversity. I have to develop some new course every day, so I have no time for comment here. -Jayprakash12345 (talk) 04:11, 18 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Closure

Tomorrow is the 4th anniversary of this proposal. It's clear that there is no consensus and most probably, there will still be no decision about it if we just continue sporadically renewing the topic for another 4 years. There is no reason to keep this open after 4 years of discussion and no common agreement. Thus, I'm proposing to close this proposal. TVShowFan122 (talk) 11:54, 22 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Robin, may you do the honours? --George Ho (talk) 03:37, 29 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I hereby closed the proposal. SPQRobin (talk) 22:09, 1 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Proposals for closing projects/Move Beta Wikiversity to Incubator

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