[Wikipedia-l] Re: On press releases and boasting

Sun Oct 3 09:14:16 UTC 2004

On Sat, 02 Oct 2004 20:49:37 -0700, Michael Snow
<wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
> >elian writes:
> >>I'm not entirely sure if it's a good idea to send a separate press
> >>release. We discussed this yesterday among the german wikipedians,
> >>feelings were mixed.
> >>
> >>
> >Well, it would be combined with other notices for the coming week.
> >But this professional content test (and it would not be a bad idea to
> >commission more of the same) is more newsworthy than the
> >successful completion of our fundraiser.
> >
> On this one, I agree with Elian. I doubt that a press release of this
> nature would have much impact because we haven't done anything worth
> mentioning (completing the fundraiser precipitated by our last press
> release doesn't qualify), this is something somebody else did. 

A fine point.  Do you think a press release would be appropriate for
promoting a similar study, if it were commissioned by Wikipedia?

> And if the wikipedians on de: are skeptical about the value
> of a press release here, when the test relates specifically to them,
> I think that's a pretty good indication for the rest of us. 

My initial interest in such a press release was sparked by interest
from wikipedians on de: .  Elian's post above was my first indication 
that this enthusiasm was not universal.

> An alternative idea might be to play this up as part of a rollout for whatever 
> new quality control system we develop - as in "Look how good we already 
> are, now we're getting better".

Yes; I like Erik's idea of doing this once a sizeable number of
articles (1000?)
have passed through this system in at least one language.  At the same time, 
we should commission a similar content comparison for en:...

-- 
+sj+