Hello!
We have been discussing the following problem on [Wikide-l]:
In the German-speaking countries de.wikipedia.org is used quite frequently to do research. More and more we are also linked in online magazines or even referenced in printed publications. Whatismore, many visitors reach us from google (we have got a very good rank for many key words) and then have no idea what the Wikipedia is about. They find useful data at the Wikipedia but often times - not to say most of the time - but don't know that everybody can edit articles. We aren't too concerned about the ones that believe everything even the rare facts that might be incorrect because nobody has revised them but we think that more people would use the opportunity to amend articles than do already today.
We therefore would like to introduce a small JavaScript-script into the German wikipedia pages that shows a small text about the wiki principle to everybody reaching with an external referrer. First we thought about making realizing this via a php-Script but this would increase the load the server has to deal with whereas a JavaScript-script that is stored in every file coulod be cached.
We know that there are still some browser out there that have problems with the more elaborate JavaScript-scripts but this probably is a problem of the not-so-widely-used, non-MS browsers. But then we figured that most of the time - and we know that this involves a lot of generalizing - those, who know the internet well use alternative browser and that those, who know the internet well, know at least a little about Wikipedia and the wiki principle.
Has any of the developers any objections against anything like this? I'll post the script later on as it is still in development.
Best regards
wotan