On Sat., Apr. 13, 2019, 2:27 a.m. Gerard Meijssen, < gerard.meijs...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Wikipedia is indeed clearly the core global brand. The notion that > Wikidata will "never match Wikipedia whatever its future success" is a sad > argument. > You misunderstand me. I do not mean in importance: Wikidata will surely be equally important to knowledge sharing, and more pervasive, though the two are hard to compare and not independent. I mean purely in the memetics and brand sense: the history of humanity will keep a mention of Wikipedia for centuries, should we persist that long. Its success, elegance, and defiance of previous assumptions remains in many places the dominant shorthand for crowdsourcing, period; for editable websites; the standard visual template for reference works. Other projects that follow in those footsteps, even if they become much more influential or pervasive, will not surpass the deep and broad appeal of the original. ==== That said ! Aside from recognizing confusion around 'Wikimedia' that we can reduce, I reckon a central branding focus should be making our messaging and core interactions (including Wikidata and Commons meta pages) truly interlingual. This takes a combination of software, translators, and brand focus. It is the obvious way to meaningfully amplify reach and participation in underrepresented regions: literally underrepresented because the projects don't seem to speak to or to know how to hear from them; and because of iterative network effects of those on projects inviting their friends, enemies, and colleagues. Rather than the somewhat zero sum efforts to change branding in a way that shifts around community expectations (and may not attract any more contributors), a branding effort that enhances cross language connection and reminds people of the global bounty of the projects, would be an updraft for all. Run translation drives every month, posting banners in other languages on each project inviting participation. ;). Revel in the experimental brokenness of multilingual-talk-page tools and invite pan-language web designers to.come play + iterate with us, w a bit UN and translator-network campaign. We don't have to keep repainting the sign on our house, we can now relandscape the entire neighborhood. SJ p.s. if Commons hates 'Wikicommons' we can vid up and return to its original name, MultimediaWiki. _______________________________________________ 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>
