Hi,
I came across the Inspire campaign that tries to increase the awareness of Wikipedia in countries where it is found to be too low. I could think of a few ideas that could probably help in increasing awareness which I thought of sharing with you. I'm writing this email rather than suggesting them as ideas in "Grants:IdeaLab/Inspire" for various reasons which include "I'm skeptical as to whether these ideas would be redundant to what's already suggested" and "I'm not sure whether I could take upon the task of realizing the idea.". I would also be posting these ideas in the talk page of "Grants:IdeaLab/Inspire" just to increase the audience.
1. Games
Games are a great way to involve people. If games like the "The Wikidata game" were developed to involve people in various ways in activities that improve Wikipedia indirectly (I think direct involvement would reduce the audience a lot), it might possibly help in reaching a wider audience.
2. Encourage sharing
Currently I think "sharing" isn't promoted well by Wikipedia as much as the current generation expect to share content. I also think sharing might increase the awareness of Wikipedia by many fold. In case we introduce more ways to share content and promote them along with the exisiting ways found in Wikipedia it might help in improving the awareness of Wikipedia. Also we could try to do some branding in the content being shared to ensure people realise that the source is Wikipedia. Some "new ways" to share content might be,
- Allowing users to select some text in an article and share a link to that portion of the text. When another user taps on that link the article is loaded and scrolled to a position so that the concerned portion of the text is visible and is highlighted. (Was there a community wishlist entry related to this?)
- Allowing the Wikipedia mobile web users to share selected text as an image just like how the Android app allows it's users to.
I think conducting a research to find the ways in which users like to share Wikipedia content would reveal more ideas. Also, the mobile apps coul promote sharing in a better way.
3. Advertisements
Quoting from my comment on the project's talk page[1],
It really is great idea to promote Wikipedia through TV ads (an ad-free service promoted through ads, it's an ironical world). A lot of people would come to know of it when the correct television channel is chosen for advertisements. There is a small issue of promoting Wikipedia's motive correctly through ads. It would possibly be the first time a lot of people would be hearing of Wikipedia. Care should be taken to promote it's motives correctly possibly considering the psychology of first impression. Hope Wikipedia gets recognized!
To add to it, advertising should be done at the right occasions. Advertising during festival and celebration time would generally have more wider reach than advertising during any other time. When it ocmes to India, the Doordharshan network used to be considered a good choice when it comes to reaching the rural audience. Not sure if it still holds now.
I do see many ideas talking about advertisements but thought I could share what I think about it.
4. Increasing Brand awareness
Again quoting from my comment on the project's talk page[1],
I guess using the phrase "Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia" rather than just "Wikipedia" in more places like mobile web, mobile app etc. where the you could generally find more new readers would help in reducing the confusion. When people see the phrase "the free encyclopedia in more places they would possibly not mistake it for a search engine or a social media platform.
P.S.: I think I now see why the Wikipedia android app introduced a new onboarding page titled "The free encyclopedia" recently. It's a good first move but possibly not enough.
Don't scare away people from Wikipedia! ======================================= So far I've mentioned ideas to possibly attract new readers and increase awareness. I also have a suggestion to avoid people from leaving Wikipedia or stop using it after some time. One of the main issue of Wikipedia according to me is the "lack of consistency" in the User Interface. For example, consider the mobile web and the Android app.
1. The Wikipedia android app shows the Wikidata description of an article under the article's title, if one is present. The same is not done by mobile web.
2. You could know about the issues in a page by tapping on the "Page issues" link found under the title of the page. The same "Page issues" option is hidden behind a menu in the Android app.[2]
3. The Android app allows the user to see the Table of Contents(ToC) of an article by swiping from the left edge of the screen while the same is not possible in mobile web. Though limited, the ability to access the ToC of an article by the means of a swipe in the Andorid app is an useful feature which I miss in the mobile web. (Of course, they've tried to overcome the issue in alternative way but I still miss the ToC on mobile devices).
These are just a few inconsistencies but there are more like "lack of powerful editing tools in mobile", "'Alerts' and 'Notifications' are separate on desktop but they are both shown under 'Notifications' on mobile" etc. It would be nice if consistencies were avoided to give users a consistent user experience regardless of the mode of access.
[1]: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:New_Readers/Raising_Awareness_in_India [2]: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T158307
HTH, Kaartic
QUOTE
“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.”
- J. K. Rowling
WIKIPEDIA: DID YOU KNOW?
Only 33% of internet users in India have heard of Wikipedia !!
* What do you think could be the reason behind this?
* What are ways in which the awareness about Wikipedia in India and other countries be increased ?
Reference:
* Give your ideas for increasing the awareness of Wikipedia in India and in other countries and get a Grant from the Wikimedia Foundation to bring your idea to life.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Inspire
* Know more about the awareness problem of Wikipedia
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/New_Readers/Awareness
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/New_Readers/Next_steps/Raising_awareness