Thank you, Ravi. The mutual benefit is something, as you have pointed
out, is really important.
Best,
Gautam
________
http://social.prathambooks.org/
On 6 June 2011 12:53, Ravishankar <ravidreams(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Gautam,
I am not sure if this is related with them closing down other Indic related projects.
Two guesses:
1. They might have started these projects with a goal of collecting some data and they
might have met it.
2. They might have found the Indic market less profitable at the moment and might have
chosen to shut down some resources.
Google's project can hardly be called a partnership. It started the program on its
own and the communities had only two choices: Block them or guide them how to do it
better.
Tamil Wikipedia chose to work with them in the hope of improving this project and tried
to provide a pilot model for other Wikipedias.
From my experience in this project, my personal opinion is that:
Partnerships should be mutual, transparent, well conceived and always in the best
interest of Wikipedia.
Any commercial interest in the content created will only lead to compromise of some
sort.
For example, if a book publisher wants to write a series of articles in Wikipedia and
then publish it, this might seem like a good will gesture of donating articles to
Wikipedia. But, the articles may not adhere to Wikipedia's MOS and may be written in a
style for their target audience.
Commercial entities can best support Wikimedia by "donating" resources like
tools, facilities and sponsorships to conduct events.
Ravi