[Wikipedia-l] Re: Jimbo interview on NPR Friday?

[Anthere]

Hi Stan

Thank you for your comment

Stan Shebs a écrit:
 > Anthere wrote:
 >
 >>
 >> A couple of times, I tried to insist a little bit, trying to explain
 >> how our project international was, and how reducing it was to only
 >> talk to only one of our local community, while so many editors are
 >> able to speak enough english to be understood (I am not too good and I
 >> guess I would not be very understandable on a radio stuff, but others
 >> non-english do really have high quality language, and these guys were
 >> recommanded... but not contacted). I regret to say that the answer I
 >> generally got was "yes, but talking of the other languages do not
 >> interest our audience".
 >>
 >> What would you answer to that ?
 >
 >
 > I agree completely that it's a problem. I think you're experiencing
 > a part of the larger evolution of traditional journalism into
 > corporate propaganda, another vicious circle that I imagine will
 > end up with the disappearance of much of journalism as we know it
 > today, as people gradually stop paying attention to it. I don't
 > think it's a coincidence that WP's "in the news" area got so strong
 > that it was able to spin off its own project; there are all kinds
 > of experiments with alternate channels for information right now,
 > much of it motivated by dissatisfaction with the sad state of news
 > handling.
 >
 > One of the big trends these days is "targeted marketing". In other
 > words, instead of trying to interest a Bush-voting French-hating
 > Houston suburbanite in WP's multilingualism, a very tough sell,
 > go through a channel that gets to an architecture student about to
 > spend a year of study in Paris, or an advertising agency contracted
 > to pitch Las Vegas tourism in Malaysia. There are lots of English
 > speakers deeply interested in the non-English-speaking world, the
 > trick is to find them. I don't know the details myself, but media
 > and marketing pros know all about that - it could be as simple as
 > an email announcement to the right mailing list, or an article in
 > a special-interest magazine.

This is certainly true... but don't you think the student will just go 
to [[en:architecture]] ? That's the issue; he will go to the site 
easiest to read for himself. And for now... chance is he will find more 
on the english version on top :-)

But right, the trick might be to find some "niche" (specialised) topic.


 > While it's very exciting and flattering to give interviews to
 > mainstream media, I think you have to go in with pretty low
 > expectations these days.
 >
 > Stan

hmmm :-)

When I joined the french wikipedia, it was something like 100 stubs...
and about 10 editors overall.

Media had absolutely no interest in us whatsoever. I remember sending 
one press release to 50 addresses, with a 0% feedback. Tough ;-)

You would not believe what I did to try to make people join...:-)
Wandering in forums, haunting mailing lists, joining groupuscules, 
writing to the political parties, ... dropping links and hints on my way...

A couple of times, I had one person or another follow... but ultimately, 
I am not sure it was worth the time involved... Well, it was fun...

I want to be clear on one point Stan; the issue is not to give 
interviews in the big press and to feel flattered. I enjoyed enough 
interviews myself in the french media for a satisfactory feeling. The 
french press is frequently featuring wikipedia since last summer. We had 
several radio shows and even a television show. And I think that 
overall, there were enough requests so that several french people could 
have fun, so this is really not the issue.

The issue is more that english is our lingua franca, and that any report 
in "english" is beneficial to ALL of us. The best proof of this is that 
David posted this here. Not on wikien-l...

French, Germans etc... rarely mention their own interviews HERE on 
wikipedia-l... in short, an article, a show, in english and especially 
when Jimbo is in, will have a much larger audience. It will be a 
reference. See the feedback of previous /., of Wired, the comments of 
the Britannica previous editor... the impact is very large. This is why 
it is frustrating that these references are restrictive.

ant