Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Policy matters

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Still a good idea in 2022[edit]

This project was established in 2006, never took off, and marked defunct in 2011. Its founder has been inactive since 2013. There is no activity here.

Still, I think this project is a good idea, and that there is no other particular place for this activity. At Meta there are places for Wikimedia affiliate organizations to advocate for their communities, but there is no affiliate for English Wikipedia specifically. Here on English Wikipedia there are central discussion boards at Wikipedia:Village pump, but those are for individuals to discuss issues, and not for organizing collective action.

I was looking for a project like this one because of Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Coordination/2022 WMF letter, in which English Wikipedia editors are petitioning for particular technical development from the Wikimedia Foundation. Money is not discussed there, but because of the complexity of the request, I estimate that the Wikimedia Foundation could only grant it with 2 permanent full time staff developing and maintaining it indefinitely. That probably would cost US$450,000 a year, because 1 staff + administration for developers is about 225/year so far as I understand. A petition like this one is unprecedented.

Something else new is that the Wikimedia Foundation recently convened a staff public policy team at meta:Public policy. Previously WMF teams acted globally; this one is a bit different because it frames itself as concerned with policy in the United States. United States interests and English Wikipedia have a lot of overlap, and there is no particular community response to that team. It is 12 people, so this probably is about a US$2+ million annual perpetual investment. I think the English Wikipedia community is a stakeholder in this. They are having their first public meetings right now.

If anyone is interested in organizing something in the future then I encourage it - English Wikipedia includes a lot of investment and policy decisions, and there is currently no organized community response for this. Bluerasberry (talk) 17:03, 26 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]