Wikipedia is clearly the core global brand. It also has a prominence in the history of the Web and internetworked society that Wikidata, whatever its future success, will never match.
Internally, as all have noted, the dilemma is that it is associated with the focus and policies of one project. So if we shift towards calling things "Wikipedia Foo" instead of "Wikimedia Foo", we will have to go out of our way to expand its connotations. That takes an internal campaign: w thoughtful & responsive answers to common questions /concerns. SJ P.S. Personally, while these recs encourage keeping the old project names, I think Wikipictionary, Wikipews, Wikipedanta and Wikiperversity have a chance of becoming even more popular with new readers & contributors. -- On Fri., Apr. 12, 2019, 11:33 p.m. Andrew Lih, <andrew....@gmail.com> wrote: > Responses below: > > On Wed, Apr 10, 2019 at 5:07 PM Strainu <strain...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > I would argue that, on the contrary, for the outside word we were less > > Wikipedia 10 years ago. Around that time there was still hope that > > Wikibooks or Wikinews could still be successful, at least in some > > languages. New language versions of other projects than Wikipedia were > > created relatively regularly and many people who started with > > Wikipedia moved on to maintain and develop other projects. Today the > > Foundation has all but given up on all other projects except the 3 you > > mention below (and, to some extent, Wikisource), Google is taking data > > from Wikipedia (but prefers other dictionaries instead of Wikt) and > > people barely hide a polite yawn when you talk about the other > > projects. > > > > For the record, I was one of the earliest skeptics of Wikinews and was one > of the first accredited Wikinewsies in 2005. I believed the best way to > critically understand its flaws was to actually immerse myself in it. I > quickly saw it was not viable, and memorialized my thoughts about it for > Harvard Nieman Lab (below). I say this not to brag, but simply to say that > the "hope" of that era may be overhyped. :) > > > https://www.niemanlab.org/2010/02/why-wikipedia-beats-wikinews-as-a-collaborative-journalism-project/ > > > > > - We stand on three legs (and more): If there was ever a time that > > > Wikimedia was more than Wikipedia, it is now. The trio of Wikipedia, > > > Commons and Wikidata is the bedrock of open knowledge sharing in a way > > that > > > was not true even 3 years ago. > > > > While that is true, the monolingual nature of the last 2 has left all > > but the most determined outside this revolution. While not directly > > relevant for the branding issue, it partially explains why people know > > about Wikipedia more: it's in their language! > > > > Wait, I'm confused. Are you saying Wikidata is a "monolingual" project? As > a semantic database, it's perhaps the most multilingual-friendly project we > have. I've collaborated with Portuguese and French GLAM projects on > Wikidata because of how good it is at providing an interface for a shared > data set using the user's native tongue. So I'm eager to hear more about > why you believe Wikidata is in the "monolingual" bin. > > > > Specialization has clear advantages, but again, is not helping with > > branding towards the general public and that is our target, not GLAM > > or photographers. > > > > This is a valid critique, though I'm not sure we've ever put the full force > of Foundation resources behind providing public awareness for Commons. It's > mostly been through community-level efforts and SiteNotice banners, to my > knowledge, for WLM, Commons POTY, Wiki Loves Africa, etc. > > Not sure what the point is here. System biases are also obvious in > > Commons (copyright law) and Wikidata (very specific knowledge is > > required to understand how data is organized). > > > > I think the point is: add the systemic bias of needing to know how to read > to the stack of the biases you also list here. There are a multitude of > challenges, and I think you absolutely win with "understanding copyright" > as the biggest user challenge we have. :) > > > > This war is specific to English Wikipedia and a few other wikis > > (admittedly, rather larger ones). Smaller communities have already > > largely embraced Wikidata in infoboxes and elsewhere. This has not > > changed how they represent themselves and I believe that the same > > holds true for the renaming. > > > > Oh yes, there are many folks highly envious of Basque and Catalan Wikipedia > where Wikidata integration is used effectively on a large scale. > > > > Also, I believe it is mistaken to think of the branding proposal as a > > single, monolithic, yes-or-no proposal. It is rather a series of > > proposals, some easier and some more complicated to implement. Each > > should be analyzed independently for its own merits. > > > > Agree. We won't know until/if it happens. I simply wanted to make sure a > broad set of concerns were being incorporated into the risk assessment. > > Thanks > -Andrew > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
