[Foundation-l] Wikimedia Brand Survey Analysis

[Anthony]

On 7/5/07, Dmcdevit <dmcdevit at cox.net> wrote:
> Anthony wrote:
> > On 7/5/07, Brion Vibber <brion at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> >
> >> Anthony wrote:
> >>
> >>> On 7/5/07, Brion Vibber <brion at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> >>> If people are giving you something
> >>> because they want to help Wikipedia, then that something should be
> >>> used toward Wikipedia, not some other project.
> >>>
> >> That might be true if people thought there was a difference between the
> >> various projects we do, or if they thought that we shouldn't ever do
> >> anything other than encyclopedia pages. On the contrary, though, people
> >> often recommend we do additional things.
> >>
> >>
> > I find it hard to believe that anyone would think there's no
> > difference between the various projects.
> >
> Really? Have you ever worked for a non-Wikipedia project? Sometimes I
> get the feeling half of the readers think they simply *are* Wikipedia,
> despite the URL and logo and every other indicator.

I guess I didn't look at it that way.  To my mind, thinking there's no
difference between Wikipedia and some other project implies realizing
in the first place that there are two projects to begin with.  But I
guess I misinterpreted that.

> Even a significant
> amount of the OTRS mail for Wiktionary is either people complaining
> about something that happened on Wikipedia, or someone complaining that
> their band's article, or some other encyclopedic article they added
> because they thought it was Wikipedia, got deleted. And how many times
> have you seen some newbie at Wikipedia, ignorant of any projects other
> than Wikipedia, suggest that we include dictionary definitions to go
> along with our articles?
>
So, the assertion is that it's OK to get something for Wikipedia, and
then use it for another project, because people who contribute to that
other project think they're contributing to Wikipedia anyway, and
because people who contribute to Wikipedia are unaware of the other
projects?

I dunno, the second part of that definitely doesn't seem to fit.  The
fact that newbies at Wikipedia are ignorant of the other projects
seems to go to my point.  If that newbie donates money to Wikipedia,
for instance, the money shouldn't go to some probject the newbie has
no clue about.  As for the first part, I guess you could argue that
people get "wide eyes and bright smiles" when you talk about Wikipedia
because they think you're talking about some other project like
Wiktionary, but I kind of doubt that's true to any significant degree.