First Wikimedia-related contributor Kickstarter? - Wikimedia-l

Samuel Klein

1 Nov 1 Nov

11:03 p.m.

That's the first one I have heard of. Congratulations, Evan! Kickstarters such as this are fantastic, and I am glad to see it was successful. The debate is (or should be) about paid advocacy, not paid editing. Many people are paid in part to help add free knowledge, often by popular demand, to the commons. Wiki-PR evaded the en:wp guidelines about paid advocacy, published their own third-party articles to fake the appearance of multiple independent sources, and used socks to hide their connection. These are not comparable. Sam. On Fri, Nov 1, 2013 at 6:34 PM, Nathan <nawrich(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

A post is live on Gizmodo today about a Commons contributor (Evan-Amos) who takes high quality photos of video game systems and hardware.[1] Towards the end it mentions that Evan started a Kickstarter to fund his efforts to buy and photograph more systems as part of an online museum.[2] Anyone know if this is the first Wikimedia-related Kickstarter campaign, or has it happened before? What do people think about someone raising ~$13k to contribute photos to Commons? How does that fit in the debate about paid editing? To me it has a very different feel than, say, Wiki-PR. But... [1] http://gizmodo.com/how-i-became-gamings-most-popular-and-anonymous-photog-1… [2] http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1699256938/the-vanamo-online-game-museum _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

-- Samuel Klein @metasj w:user:sj +1 617 529 4266

Reply

Tomasz Finc

11:51 p.m.

Very cool. As a big fan of video games, kick starter, and commons this is a nice set of worlds colliding. Big props to Evan-Amos for the work he's already done. I'd love to get notifications when new images are contributed by him. Currently I can go to Special:ListFiles to see what he's uploaded but that requires an action from me. Does anyone know if I can have echo notify me when a new upload by a particular users occurs? Effectively I'd like to a notification and/or stream of users I've followed on Commons so that I can then take those images and use them on articles. If not maybe it'll be a fun side project for me. --tomasz [1] - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:ListFiles/Evan-Amos On Fri, Nov 1, 2013 at 3:34 PM, Nathan <nawrich(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

A post is live on Gizmodo today about a Commons contributor (Evan-Amos) who takes high quality photos of video game systems and hardware.[1] Towards the end it mentions that Evan started a Kickstarter to fund his efforts to buy and photograph more systems as part of an online museum.[2] Anyone know if this is the first Wikimedia-related Kickstarter campaign, or has it happened before? What do people think about someone raising ~$13k to contribute photos to Commons? How does that fit in the debate about paid editing? To me it has a very different feel than, say, Wiki-PR. But... [1] http://gizmodo.com/how-i-became-gamings-most-popular-and-anonymous-photog-1… [2] http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1699256938/the-vanamo-online-game-museum _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

Reply

Steven Walling

1:56 a.m.

On Fri, Nov 1, 2013 at 3:34 PM, Nathan <nawrich(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

A post is live on Gizmodo today about a Commons contributor (Evan-Amos) who takes high quality photos of video game systems and hardware.[1] Towards the end it mentions that Evan started a Kickstarter to fund his efforts to buy and photograph more systems as part of an online museum.[2] Anyone know if this is the first Wikimedia-related Kickstarter campaign, or has it happened before? What do people think about someone raising ~$13k to contribute photos to Commons? How does that fit in the debate about paid editing? To me it has a very different feel than, say, Wiki-PR. But... [1] http://gizmodo.com/how-i-became-gamings-most-popular-and-anonymous-photog-1… [2] http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1699256938/the-vanamo-online-game-museum

This guy is a free culture badass. :-) I wish more Commons contributors could promote and support their work like this. This project makes me think about other high quality photo collections, such as the many featured pictures of vintage computers or rocks and minerals. The list goes on and on. Like others have hinted at, both chapters and the WMF can potentially give out grants to support photography projects like this. I wonder if Evan knew that or considered it? I'd love to hear feedback from him about why he felt Kickstarter was fruitful, and how it compares to our large grants infrastructure in the Wikimedia movement.

Reply

Seb35

10:52 a.m.

Le Sat, 02 Nov 2013 02:56:30 +0100, Steven Walling <steven.walling(a)gmail.com> a écrit:

...

On Fri, Nov 1, 2013 at 3:34 PM, Nathan <nawrich(a)gmail.com> wrote:

A post is live on Gizmodo today about a Commons contributor (Evan-Amos) who takes high quality photos of video game systems and hardware.[1] Towards the end it mentions that Evan started a Kickstarter to fund his efforts to buy and photograph more systems as part of an online museum.[2] Anyone know if this is the first Wikimedia-related Kickstarter campaign, or has it happened before? What do people think about someone raising ~$13k to contribute photos to Commons? How does that fit in the debate about paid editing? To me it has a very different feel than, say, Wiki-PR. But... [1] http://gizmodo.com/how-i-became-gamings-most-popular-and-anonymous-photog-1… [2] http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1699256938/the-vanamo-online-game-museum

This guy is a free culture badass. :-) I wish more Commons contributors could promote and support their work like this. This project makes me think about other high quality photo collections, such as the many featured pictures of vintage computers or rocks and minerals. The list goes on and on. Like others have hinted at, both chapters and the WMF can potentially give out grants to support photography projects like this. I wonder if Evan knew that or considered it? I'd love to hear feedback from him about why he felt Kickstarter was fruitful, and how it compares to our large grants infrastructure in the Wikimedia movement.

A small point about possible explanation for using Kickstarter is to reach other communities/public than the traditional Wikimedia communities and framework. In this sense it is also an outreach channel. I find this type of funding is original in our movement, and moreover the project appears to be conducted with a good quality, so why not? ~ Seb35

Reply