Forum:Proposal for a Civil Society Quarter page

This is a proposal for a 'Civil Society Quarter' Page started by Philralph 12:36, 6 Nov 2005 (UTC) It follows on from comment on the talk Wikia (main page talk), and then User talk:Philralph

If you'd like to support this idea
Please feel free to add in your support for the idea if appropriate by either
 * adding in details of 'your' (I'm assuming this proposal will be of most interest to Wikia founders or their active or most active supporters) in the appropriate listing, or
 * comment on the talk page

First stab at a name
The name may not be the best one it's just a first stab. 'Quarter' just refers to there being an analogy of wikicities e.g. see Wikia analogies or sca21:Cityscape (e.g. as in 'The Latin Quarter', of a city)

Page draft
Welcome to the Civil Society quarter!

What's this page about?
This page promotes and celebrates Wikia focused on the more serious side of life. It is an experiment to see if collectively Civil Society type wikis can be pioneers of some of the best examples of interwiki cooperation, collaboration, and mutual self-help. It seeks a more nurturing philosophy rather than some potentially harsh winner-takes-all type alternative.

Who is this page for?
Hopefully the previous paragraph begins to answer this. It's for anyone who's most interested in those wikia which are about perhaps slightly more serious, longer lasting, Civil Society type topics, so for example wikia in the Society, - or also Anthropology, Art, Biology, Communication, Culture, Ecology, Education, Food and Drink, Health, History, Philosophy, Politics, Religion, Science, Social Sciences, Sustainability, Technology and Transport categories (? need to create links to such)

This is not about encouraging any kind of separatism. Interwiki help to mutual advantage between all wikia is of course good, it's just a way of enabling people to follow a particular leaning or focus they may wish to support.

Neither is it about a sense of community amongst wikia that is in any way forced. If you want to include 'your' wiki below - (The listing is self-selecting so's this is not about making any work for, encouraging dependence or relying on the main wikia people) this just means you agree with the basic idea of being open to possibilities for mutual self-help amongst civil society type wikia, and may, as and when you can, contribute to the health and well-being of the treasured and diverse whole of such wikia.

What's here
As we're about mutual self-help to sustain each others Wikia, there's first a focus on some broad (proposed) Wikia development stages listing particpating Wikia, then collecting together some specific and more general examples of mutual self-help between wikia.

Wikia more than 9 months old
Mutual help towards really robust, self-sustaining wikis (may take till around 2 years)
 * Sustainable Community Action started Dec 6 2004
 * Beyond Voting started Jan 11 2005
 * Future started Jan 28 2005

Wikia 3 - 9 months old
Benefit from mutual encouragement when 1st enthusiasm of founder at risk of burn-out.

New Wikia less than 3 months old
Share your new found enthusiasm for Wikia and help nurture fellow Civil society type 'newbies'


 * Meta Collab - a collaboration on all things collaboration. Started 3 October, 2005!
 * urbepedia - a wiki about all things urban - started February 2006.

Happy first birthday!
In the 6 months plus category see which wikia have a first birthday coming up. Then send them a sort of 'birthday card' type message, for example to their founder or active contributors. Can you give them some sort of 'birthday present' by adding a little to their content? (you can start of course by adding birthday congrats to the main wikia site round about now) (And, of course, later on happy 2nd birthday! etc.)

Rewarding collaboration between Civil Society Wikia
Every 3 (?) months or so (from when there's enough participating Wikia), propose and vote on /support proposals for the Wikia engaging in the best inter Wikia collaboration of mutual self help (over that period). (I know it's individuals who help rather than wikia but this could perhaps be got round by Featuring the Wikia of choice of the individual commended)

Pay it forward
As well as 'paying back' any Wikia that help 'your' Wikia (and of course reciprocating help is good) 'Pay it forward' and every so often try and add something of value to a Civil Society type Wikia of your choice.

More general examples
Sister cities pages - example at sca21:Sister Cities, Wikinodes, tips on publicising Wikia, tips on networking opportunities, making improvements to Help pages, etc etc.

What next?
If this proposal attracts enough support the idea is to link direct to an actual page from the wikicities main page - e.g to have some sort of civil society type presence in the Most active wikia section.
 * Can anyone come up with a draft one-liner that captures all of this? example: Wikia focused on the more serious side of life: the Civil Society Quarter (or alternative name) promotes both new and emergent Wikia of this kind and encourages mutual self-help and collaboration between them.

This is an interesting idea. Consider Tom Lowenhaupt as a supporter and please include BeyondVoting in the effort.