Hello,
A useful element for a leaflet or booklet are short bios of Wikipedians, to show what kind of people actually contribute. For example, in my prototype German booklet I present Dr. Josef Winiger form Switzerland, a philosopher and translator of fictional literature. His PhD thesis was about the famous 19th century thinker Ludwig Feuerbach. He is also main author of the article "Ludwig Feuerbach", and for that he was awarded in 2007 with the Zedler-Medaille of Wikimedia Deutschland and the Akademie der Wissenschaften und Literatur (Mainz).
Another one is 15 year old user "Suedwester93" from Münster who is interested in the history of German resistence, believes that India is the coming super power and that Loriot is the greatest comedian of all times. He wrote the articles "Deutsche Botschaft London" and "Salomon Blumenau".
You see, such short bios include something interesting, something that makes people curious (a 15 year old encyclopedian? let's have a look at that articles!). They link the notion "Wikipedia" positively with real (even if anonymous) persons.
Would it be a good idea to collect such bios at Meta-Wiki, in the original language and also in English? At the moment, I am looking for some bios about Wikipedians from other Wikipedias than the German one.
Kind regards Ziko
On Sun, Aug 24, 2008 at 03:33:23PM +0200, Ziko van Dijk wrote:
Hello,
A useful element for a leaflet or booklet are short bios of Wikipedians, to show what kind of people actually contribute. For example, in my prototype German booklet I present Dr. Josef Winiger form Switzerland, a philosopher and translator of fictional literature. His PhD thesis was about the famous 19th century thinker Ludwig Feuerbach. He is also main author of the article "Ludwig Feuerbach", and for that he was awarded in 2007 with the Zedler-Medaille of Wikimedia Deutschland and the Akademie der Wissenschaften und Literatur (Mainz).
Another one is 15 year old user "Suedwester93" from Münster who is interested in the history of German resistence, believes that India is the coming super power and that Loriot is the greatest comedian of all times. He wrote the articles "Deutsche Botschaft London" and "Salomon Blumenau".
You see, such short bios include something interesting, something that makes people curious (a 15 year old encyclopedian? let's have a look at that articles!). They link the notion "Wikipedia" positively with real (even if anonymous) persons.
Would it be a good idea to collect such bios at Meta-Wiki, in the original language and also in English? At the moment, I am looking for some bios about Wikipedians from other Wikipedias than the German one.
It would - go ahead :)
Sean
-- —Sean Whitton / sean@silentflame.com OpenPGP KeyID: 0x25F4EAB7
This is another example of a fantastic idea that we need to measure and monitor so it stays fresh and keeps being fantastic :)
The Foundation is also in the process of profiling WP users and WP readers from around the world.
Granted you can always create a meta page and get started, but we should think about how you will keep this going, who will watch it (a user, a chapter, the foundation?) and who will keep in touch with those profiled so we can make sure we always have consent to use their information?
This is another strong argument for doing all of this in one place, probably not in a highly public wiki area, where we can track the information. If you're working on materials that will ultimately result in a public/media document, then you might need to keep it in a more contained planning space than meta.
I know we are made from the stuff of broad public collaboration, but in cases like these I'm happy to discuss the project/strategy in a place like this so we can think about the best ways to move forward. I would prefer to see the product of this work in one public product that one or several people are keeping up to date than in a place where people could possibly stumble into it one year from now.
All part of the 'best practices' discussion i hope we can have about this process.