The news is getting out and we are bringing readership over which is key for the ultimate success of the site.

We just surpassed the old site in google search results today by hitting 6.6 million (yesterday we where at half that). WT is at 4.8 million.

WV will be build by a core group of users in each language. No one starts out editing perfect. I had my first edited reverted on Wikipedia because it sucked and after some feedback from an experienced user have now made more than 70,000 of them :-) And of course have become fairly involved. The editor who reverted my first edit has even become a good friend.

If each language can just create half a dozen new core users that will be a big success. While most will not respond to pleasant feedback some will.

James



On Fri, Jan 18, 2013 at 1:52 PM, Yaroslav M. Blanter <putevod@mccme.ru> wrote:
On Fri, 18 Jan 2013 19:00:38 +0100, Mattias Sweden wrote:
Yaroslav,
 
thanks for your thoughts! We have had a couple of WP users,
acting the way you describe, but it is my firm belief that they wont
stay for long. Actually, Id say thay are probably gone already. We

see it as a temporary problem, something we really do not have to
worry about, but it is necessary to monitor whatever they decide to
put in.
 
Furthermore, we have seen the same kind of anonymous edits you mention
regarding lists of cities, etc etc. It is not easy to decide whats

good or bad, but we console ourselves with the fact WV does not have
a deadline. So, we remove the most dreadful contributions, leave what
seems fine, and generally try to act according to the "when in
doubt..." theory.

Thanks. This is indeed also what we decided to do. We have at the time being sufficient capacity to monitor the edits and revert obvious vandalism and copyvio, but this is pretty much it. We assume that when the banner is down, the influx of IP edits will also decrease, and we will have time to bring the articles in order.


 
Prior to launch (actually, on the same day of the launch...), I wrote
to our local chapter of Wikimedia and asked their press contact to
have a look at the press release on meta, which I had translated into
Swedish. He was really happy to hear about the project and posted the
press release on some... hm... press release site. One of the national
newspapers wrote an article about WV. I have been asked to write
something for a blogger and net activist who seems to be in demand,
even though I have never heard of him... I also maintain contact with
known Wikipedians who contribute to Wikivoyage, relying on word of
mouth and their positive attitude to facilitate the project.

Russian chapter did not show so far much interest in the project, did not issue a press-release, and the blog post was only today. From what I know, they did not contact any of the administrators of the project. We collaborated with Russian Wikinews, who published a news on Jan 15, but all media in Russian I have seen are translations of the English ones. We have not been approached by anybody from the media either.

 
So, keep up the good work, Yaroslav! I am sure that this will turn out
fine, even if it might take some time. Rome wasnt built in a day...
 
 

I hope it will, otherwise I would not even start.


Cheers
Yaroslav

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James Heilman
MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian

The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine
www.opentextbookofmedicine.com