OrthodoxWiki:Project Ideas

OrthodoxWiki (wikifying Orthodoxy since 2004) has been serving as a directory, an encyclopedia, and an archive of Orthodox images. Soon, we will launch OrthodoxSource, which is to be a repository for Orthodox images, audio, video, and documents. This will serve to clarify the mission of each site and provide a space to build in a different direction.

Many other projects are possible as well. In some cases, new wikis, tied in to OrthodoxSource as a common image and media repository, would be beneficial. I am willing to handle the technical side of things and arrange for hosting, etc. - but I can't develop these projects alone. They will take a lot of community involvement to build.

I am curious to know what kinds of projects seem most interesting or fruitful to build.

Wikimedia Projects

By way of example, Wikimedia (the foundation that oversees Wikipedia) has the following major projects (with more constantly being recommended and occasionally added):

• The Wikimedia Commons is a repository of free content images, sound and other multimedia files. It is a common resource repository to all the various Wikimedia sister projects regardless of language.

• Wikisource – The Free Library – is a project to build a free content wiki library of source texts, along with translations into any language and other supporting materials. It is located at Wikisource.org.

• Wiktionary is a project intended to be a free wiki dictionary (hence: Wiktionary) (including thesaurus and lexicon) in every language. It is located at wiktionary.org.

• Wikibooks is a wiki for the creation of books.

• Wikijunior is the working title for a set of books targeted to children aged 8–11 being developed at the Wikibooks. This effort will consist of both a website and magazine.

• Wikinews is a free-content news source wiki. It allows anyone to report news on a wide variety of subjects. Its mission, as stated on the main page of the English version of its website, is to "create a diverse environment where citizen journalists can independently report the news on a wide variety of current events".

• Wikispecies is an open, free directory of species.

• The Meta wiki serves a number of distinct roles, including discussion and coordination of all the various Wikimedia projects and a help guide to the MediaWiki software.

• The Wikimedia Incubator is used to test possible new Wikimedia projects and new languages for existing projects.

Other Projects

• WikiIndex is a directory of Wiki sites, which aims to categorize all wikis by various criteria. It is related to AboutUs.com, which aims to pull in information for every site on the world wide web.

Future Possibilities

• OrthodoxQuotes - A huge collections of Patristic and other quotes?

• OrthodoxTexts - A place to post full text (public domain, etc.) books (separate from OrthodoxSource, where they would probably be posted as PDFs instead?)

• OrthodoxSites - Something like WikiIndex or AboutUs.com, but that caters specifically to the Orthodox community?

• OrthodoxBooks - Summaries of Orthodox books and authors

• OrthodoxBlogs - A catalogue of Orthodox Blogs, categorizing them by license (full copyright or Creative Commons), themes (theology, politics, personal life, parish life, technology, etc.), jurisidiction, and locale, with descriptions, links, and RSS feeds for each. This could also include thematic distillations of material culled from Orthodox blogs, along with notes about the willingness of each blogger to let his or her content be repurposed in this way.

• OrthodoxLiturgy - A catalogue of Orthodox liturgical commentary and real-life practices from various locations in the Orthodox cosmos.

More...

Any other ideas? Add a new comment.