Dear all,
I’m thrilled to share with you something very unusual:
This is a call for participation to all Wikipedians all over the world.
Today, we set up a global community discussion about taking Wikipedia to
the Moon – yes, in the literal sense. It is a special birthday gift in the
year of Wikipedia’s 15th anniversary. Please find all the details on
Meta-Wiki <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_to_the_Moon>[1], where
you can also contribute immediately and on-wiki. The following is a
nutshell of the project, containing some additional information regarding
communications:
At Wikimedia Deutschland’s we’ve been contacted by Berlin-based Google
Lunar XPRIZE competitor “Part-Time Scientists”, who are among the few
remaining teams preparing to send their own lunar vehicles to the Moon by
2017. They’ve asked us for support, because they love Wikipedia and would
like to include it in their Moon rover’s scientific payload as a gift.
According to the rules of the Lunar challenge, their rover must make it
safely to the Moon surface, drive 500 meters and transmit images to earth.
However, the Part-Time Scientists, whose motto is “Hell yeah, it’s rocket
science!”, thought it would be even cooler to also preserve the sum of all
knowledge on the Moon. So that’s why they’ve offered Wikimedia Deutschland
20GB of disc space on a ceramic-made medium, provided that we handle the
selection of Wikipedia content. That, however, is something we feel we
cannot do on our own/alone:
After 15 years of free knowledge, approaching 40 million articles in almost
300 languages, it wouldn’t be easy for anyone to take the responsibility
and decide on a selection of the work of tens of thousands of volunteers.
We believe that any preparation of Wikipedia content for such a symbolic
purpose ought to be community-driven, and necessarily even on a global
level: This is bigger than single language communities or single groups or
organizations within our vast movement. So we’ve decided to be bold and
make every step of the process open for anyone who wants to contribute. It
is up to the international community of editors how to move forward. Again,
please find more information on Meta-Wiki (and all the links)[1].
Today we are kicking off the initial discussion of possible scenarios. It
will be open until June 3. In order to match payload deadlines we need to
prepare our data long before the actual launch date. Our goal is to finish
the Wikipedia anniversary year with a successful Moon project on
International Volunteers Day, December 5.
Wikimedia Deutschland’s spokesperson Jan Apel will be handling press
inquiries and media planning with the Part-Time Scientists here in Germany.
We’ve been in contact with the WMF Communications team (thanks guys for
your support!) and hereby extend a warm invitation to communications people
all over the movement to join in[2]. It would be great to coordinate
internationally, serving as many language communities as possible.
Beginning at Wikimedia Conference, we’ll reach out and coordinate in
person, but you can sign up right away on Meta-Wiki and become part of the
Moon team yourselves.
Let’s take Wikipedia to the Moon together!
Michael
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_to_the_Moon
[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_to_the_Moon/About#Press_contacts.…
--
Michael Jahn
Leiter Kommunikation & Partnerschaften
Head of Communications & Partnerships
Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. | Tempelhofer Ufer 23-24 | 10963 Berlin
Tel. (030) 219 158 260
http://wikimedia.de <http://www.wikimedia.de>
Stellen Sie sich eine Welt vor, in der jeder Mensch freien Zugang zu der
Gesamtheit des Wissens der Menschheit hat. Helfen Sie uns dabei!
Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.V.
Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter
der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für
Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/029/42207.