Thomas,
I don't think there is much wrong with projects like Monmouthpedia and Gibraltarpedia at all. When I first heard about Monmouthpedia, I thought it was a great project.
Problems arose from –
1. the conflation of roles within the chapter,
2. the projects' being plainly described as tourism marketing initiatives in the press, and
3. the use of the Wikipedia main page to increase project and customer visibility.
I see a PR, credibility and integrity problem for the Wikimedia movement if such projects are prominently sold by Wikimedia as marketing projects designed to increase tourism – because this means we are saying it is fine to leverage Wikipedia to boost local business.
Similarly, I don't think it is wise to leverage the main page to enhance such projects' visibility, or for Wikimedia UK to endorse any such use of the main page. Commercial interests should be kept at arm's length from WMF and the chapter, and from the Wikipedia identity.
I don't want to see the Wikipedia main page play host to all manner of hidden commercial interests, especially when the commercial background is not transparent to the average reader. In relation to the lack of transparency, there is also a potential legal problem here under EU legislation, as described in the Signpost a while back:
In my view, Wikimedia should support such projects as outreach efforts, to get people involved in writing content, but not as marketing ploys.
In terms of content generation, and getting people involved in Wikipedia, these are good projects, and to that degree I support them.
Best,
Andreas
On Tue, Feb 12, 2013 at 12:42 PM, Thomas Dalton
<thomas.dalton@gmail.com> wrote:
On 11 February 2013 17:52, Andreas Kolbe <
jayen466@gmail.com> wrote:
> I would oppose any support from Wikimedia UK for targeted use of the
> Wikipedia main page to increase the visibility of projects like
> Gibraltarpedia.
to the entire concept of wikitowns? Or is it the specific
circumstances of Gibraltarpedia you object to?