[Wikipedia-l] Marketing: a question

Wed Jul 12 16:29:40 UTC 2006

----- Исходное сообщение ----- 
От: "Oldak Quill" <oldakquill at gmail.com>
Кому: <wikipedia-l at wikimedia.org>
Отправлено: 12 июля 2006 г. 19:01
Тема: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Marketing: a question

> You mention trying to get permanently featured as "not everyone knows
> that" sections on the fun pages of newspapers. Could this not fuel a
> perception of Wikipedia as somewhat frivelous? Couldn't it encourage
> more people to see our contents as a random collation of facts rather
> than a great source of information?
This is strictly related to the kind of content you allow in the wiki.
Actually I never knew myself that Cristoforo Colombo was a native PMS
speaker and that there is even a museum dedicated to him and opened by one
of his descendants in the village in where he was born. I learned that by
verifying the content we get, andf I hardly can imagine this sort of notions
having a bad impact on the wiki as such. Obviously, some care must be taken
from the very start.

But on the other hand, having such data about small cities and villages
published on the papers will give the people :
1) a clear idea of the kind of data the wiki community rates as interesting
2) the image of a wiki as a way to "store and share knowledge"
3) a first crucial contact with written minor languages as means of
communication
4) the idea that they all hold knowledge that can be shared

Point 4) is crucial for our project "Native atlas". We can manage to
properly collect a full atlas of toponims in native languages ONLY if we can
involve local people. Many of them will limit their contribution to adding
data on their own close geographic area, but a percentage of these people
will also add data on local traditions, life styles, etc. These data alone
have an immense value for researchers who cross-reference toponims to infer
old extinct languages like PIE, ligurian and lepontian. I'd rate this quite
far from being "frivelous". In addition, we would present the material
toghether with a call for partecipation in the "Native Atlas" project, and
present the project itself for what it is: a giant scale data collection
that researchers will eventually use.

The last thing we need is people coming in to add a page about their own
dog's birthday, obviously. Because it would only add extra admin work in
getting rid of it. But this far I do not see any such trend, although it
will definitely happen, if traffic grows enough for that. But at that point
we'll also have a bigger admin structure and we'll be able to cope with the
flow.

I do not think that this marketing channel "as such" can send a peculiar
image of the wiki. As all channels, it really depends on what you use it
for.

Bèrto