Geni
This is an excelent idea - of course if we mounted a bar code as well and they had wi fi or internet phone carrying customers then we could use Google Goggles and supply it in different languages....
I tried suggesting this at one museum and I got the impression that they were worried about "doing their job" of course they can use our text and take nearly all the credit for just doing a print.
Roger
On 31 January 2011 23:39, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
I was recently in the Portsmouth natural history museum (or as the natives call it Cumberland House). When I was there I saw this:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/58992329@N03/5406060116/
If you look at the text in the right column (may need to view image at full size) you will find that it is not only dated (it's treating 1982 as recent) but is treating the [[Almas (cryptozoology)]] thing seriously. The museum doesn't really have any money so this isn't something that is likely to be fixed by them any time soon.
I think offering to replace it with wikipedia based text along the lines of say [[User:Geni/museum_sign]] would fall within 7-8 of:
http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Business_Plan#Mission_and_Objectives
I don't know how much doing such a replacement would cost but I would be surprised if it passed the limit of our micro grant program. Wikimedia-UK would need to be involved to cover use of the logo and the like.
==Advantages==
*Museum gets a better sign *New way to spread wikipedia content *Gives us the chance to produce a real world example of the type of signs we would like to see (QR code and the like) *Helps draw attention to gaps in Wikipedia (in this case it failed to mention how much Neanderthals weigh) *It may get us some good will with the Portsmouth museum service which since they hold one of the larger collections of ship paintings could be kinda handy *May get us some new editors who are interested in working on such signs. *It's a concrete real world activity that we can point to as an example of what we are doing.
==Disadvantages==
*Might be more expensive than expected *Images are an issue in this case (need to check copyright status of http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Homo_neanderthalensis_models ) *Scale we can do this on is limited both financially and finding people to write such signs
==Neutral==
*They might say no
-- geni
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