Wikipedia Outreach
Contents
People working on this
- Pete Forsyth, TedErnst, and you
Description
AboutUs seeks more contributors, a robust sense of community, and more human-generated content about the worldwide web and the organizations that populate it. (This is a crude attempt to capture the spirit of the draft at WhoWeAre.)
Wikipedia already has lots of that going on: an enormous community of editors, continual collaboration, and continually growing and improving content. There is currently some crossover between AboutUs and Wikipedia editors, but this network can be improved, hopefully to the benefit of all parties.
On this page, we will explore ways in which AboutUs can learn from the evolution of Wikipedia, and strategies for soliciting help from existing Wikipedia editors. Of course, we would not try to take anyone "away" from Wikipedia, but we might be able to provide space for content or collaboration that is beyond Wikipedia's mission.
Wikipedia spam as nourishment for AboutUs?
A significant amount of energy at Wikipedia goes into removing non-notable articles, and removing extraneous external links from acceptable articles. Let's invite them to use AboutUs when removing content that's inappropriate for Wikipedia, by either moving content to from Wikipedia to AboutUs, adding AboutUs external links to Wikipedia articles, or redirecting new Wikipedia editors to AboutUs.org.
Benefits for web site owners
- Search engine optimization: unlike Wikipedia, AboutUs does not apply "NOFOLLOW" tags to external links,[1] so search engines will index sites linked from AboutUs articles. Adding external links to a Wikipedia article affords no SEO benefits (although many web site owners do not know this.)
- AboutUs does not have a notability standard for its articles, nor does it require that they be written from a neutral point of view. Web site owners should have more flexibility in presenting their sites how they like at AboutUs than they would at Wikipedia.
Benefits for Wikipedia
Wikipedia likes to welcome new editors to its community, but its restrictive policies are often off-putting to newcomers. The option of redirecting newcomers to AboutUs will be helpful to Wikipedia editors looking to promote and model genuine collaboration while keeping Wikipedia true to its ideals. Might be good to collaborate with the folks at wikipedia:Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam.
Benefits for AboutUs community
AboutUs gets exposure, and an infusion of new content and new contributors, who obviously need/want a place to write about themselves and their projects.
Concerns
Caution should be exercised when moving Wikipedia content to AboutUs. WP uses the GFDL license, while AU uses both GFDL and Creative Commons. (See discussion archive, below, for more detail.)
Results
- We have here examples of Wikipedia admins linking to an appropriate AboutUs landing page in their edit summaries or on talk pages
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- AboutUs page created, initial WP contributor vanished from WP and does not seem interested in AU.
- AboutUs page created, initial WP contributor remains engaged at WP, but does not seem interested in AU.
- AboutUs page created 12/26/07. User:Sharicn made an account here, and built a darn nice lookin' page.
- ColumbiaSoft, a Portland-based tech company.
- Suggested creating a page here. Might be a good candidate for PortlandTech portal.
Discussion
Wikipedia Outreach/archive Is it possible to determine whether a page exists on AboutUs, without having the bot do its thing? I'd like to be as informed as possible about what's already been done when reaching out to company representatives, but also save the "fun" of running the bot for them. For instance, ColumbiaSoft presented this dilemma. -Pete 20:18, 8 January 2008 (PST)
- I love this idea, Pete. The bot is fun! I don't think we'd want something like this widely publicized because we get more than 10,000 pages added per day by people searching or clicking a redlink. For the use of this WikiPedia project, maybe something can be worked out? I know dev is swamped right now getting a release out, but maybe mention it at the next WikiWednesday or ask again in a week or two? TedErnst (talk) 20:48, 8 January 2008 (PST)
- Yeah, I suspected there was a reason like that. Makes sense. Well, maybe we've found our need for an "affordance," after all! Not a pressing need of course, but it sure would be handy. I'll ask around like you suggest. -Pete 23:36, 8 January 2008 (PST)
