----- Исходное сообщение ----- От: "Oldak Quill" oldakquill@gmail.com Кому: wikipedia-l@wikimedia.org Отправлено: 12 июля 2006 г. 19:01 Тема: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Marketing: a question
You mention trying to get permanently featured as "not everyone knows that" sections on the fun pages of newspapers. Could this not fuel a perception of Wikipedia as somewhat frivelous? Couldn't it encourage more people to see our contents as a random collation of facts rather than a great source of information?
This is strictly related to the kind of content you allow in the wiki. Actually I never knew myself that Cristoforo Colombo was a native PMS speaker and that there is even a museum dedicated to him and opened by one of his descendants in the village in where he was born. I learned that by verifying the content we get, andf I hardly can imagine this sort of notions having a bad impact on the wiki as such. Obviously, some care must be taken from the very start.
But on the other hand, having such data about small cities and villages published on the papers will give the people : 1) a clear idea of the kind of data the wiki community rates as interesting 2) the image of a wiki as a way to "store and share knowledge" 3) a first crucial contact with written minor languages as means of communication 4) the idea that they all hold knowledge that can be shared
Point 4) is crucial for our project "Native atlas". We can manage to properly collect a full atlas of toponims in native languages ONLY if we can involve local people. Many of them will limit their contribution to adding data on their own close geographic area, but a percentage of these people will also add data on local traditions, life styles, etc. These data alone have an immense value for researchers who cross-reference toponims to infer old extinct languages like PIE, ligurian and lepontian. I'd rate this quite far from being "frivelous". In addition, we would present the material toghether with a call for partecipation in the "Native Atlas" project, and present the project itself for what it is: a giant scale data collection that researchers will eventually use.
The last thing we need is people coming in to add a page about their own dog's birthday, obviously. Because it would only add extra admin work in getting rid of it. But this far I do not see any such trend, although it will definitely happen, if traffic grows enough for that. But at that point we'll also have a bigger admin structure and we'll be able to cope with the flow.
I do not think that this marketing channel "as such" can send a peculiar image of the wiki. As all channels, it really depends on what you use it for.
Bèrto