Grants talk:IdeaLab/Inspire/Meta

IdeaLab Inspire Campaign

General discussion

This is the page for general or meta-level discussion about the Inspire campaign. Got feedback/suggestions about Inspire in general? Please share them here. Questions or help requests from active campaign participants should instead be posted at Grants_talk:IdeaLab/Inspire.

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• IdeaLab Friendly Space expectations
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• Inspire Campaign FAQ

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cross-linking between entries

I have just now joined, because I saw that the entries relating to my work is regarded as unsatisfactory; and I agree that it is, having had no hand in setting it up, or editing it.

What I would like to try to do, with perhaps some help from a network of others concerned, is to reconstruct all references to my work as referenced under Roy H W Johnston so as to bring out the political and scientific threads, separately but interactively. In this process I would hope to identify additional cross-reference points.

I feel I perhaps need guidance from some activists in Ireland who have contributed to (a) the development of science in Ireland since the introduction of State funding, in the 60s, via the National science Council, and (b) the analysis of the history of Marxism and the Left in Ireland since Connolly-time, and up to now.

I would welcome a next step in which I could discuss and structure an agenda, and perhaps identify additional material touched upon via my website which can be seen ar www.rjtechne.org. Contact via direct e-mail with me at roy@rjtechne.org would be welcome in this context.

Meta, the wiki where ideas go to die

Since, as far as I know, there is no popular cross-wiki watchlist, these type of projects generate only passing interest due to few people keeping up with their Meta watchlist for very long.

I, and many others, have been pointing this out for years. If you want more participants put it all on English Wikipedia. English is the international language.

Spanish and Chinese Wikipedia may be other places to start similar projects since they are popular languages too.

But most posts on Meta are in English, and most people only read stuff easily in their native language, and maybe in English. Google translation only goes so far. I can read French somewhat, but do not like wasting my time trying to decipher posts, so I tend to move on to the next English post.

It is a fantasy to think that some magical popular multinational forum will happen on Meta. Not without a finished and popular cross-wiki watchlist. --Timeshifter (talk) 20:47, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

That's in the working right now, as it happens. Meta allows for more multilingual discussions and information through the translate extension, and is a project specifically designed around this sort of cross-project collaboration, unlike enwiki which is an encyclopedia. – Ajraddatz (talk) 20:58, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

@Timeshifter: There are a lot of English speakers across our projects, but an important consideration is that many of them do not spend their time on English Wikipedia. The goal of these campaigns is to bring in ideas on themes from contributors across our projects. Placing these campaigns centrally on English Wikipedia may have more participation, but it would probably come at the cost of being less representative. I suspect many would object to the idea of hosting on English Wikipedia as catering too much to English Wikipedia as opposed to our other projects, and would not participate at all. Now, the idea of having campaigns on multiple projects is something I've considered before. It's a good idea, but it would require more capacity than the WMF currently has to manage an IdeaLab and conduct campaigns on multiple projects, in addition to having people with the necessary language skills. I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 21:33, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Let them object. English is a language, not a country. Bullshit nationalism rears its ugly head again. I pointed out long ago that there may be a technical fix for this:

• en:wikipedia.org/meta - redirect all the Meta pages to a subdirectory of English Wikipedia. Then I believe it would be on English Wikipedia's watchlist. And no one would lose their bookmarks. Meta would still have its own distinctive purpose, but without the watchlist problem. --Timeshifter (talk) 02:49, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Have you noticed Meta is not only about Wikipedia? Regardless of the language "issues", a "wikipedia.org" domain would be totally unfit. Meta used to have that and it was changed to wikimedia.org as it became home to more and more sister projects. --Vogone (talk) 02:54, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Fantasy land again. The perfect being the obstacle to the pragmatic. English Wikipedia is where the most users are by far. --Timeshifter (talk) 03:18, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

I think you've made your point, and it's safe to say that moving IdeaLab and Inspire Campaigns to English Wikipedia is never actually going to happen. Being on Meta is not perfect (no one ever claimed this was some magical popular multinational forum), but moving to English Wikipedia does more harm than good. I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 03:26, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

What harm? --Timeshifter (talk) 03:45, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

I have left a comment

I left a comment in Talk:New_Readers. Also, there are of Italians in China maybe you can tell me when and where I can translate your sitenotice since I don't see it so far on itwikipedia but only on enwikipedia or eswikipedia.--Alexmar983 (talk) 10:46, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

@Alexmar983: Thanks for offering to translate. KHarold (WMF), is there a place where Alex can translate the CentralNotice for the campaign? I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 03:52, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Just ping me, I am here.--Alexmar983 (talk) 03:54, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

I have issues with the methodology that says less than 50% of "Nigeria internet users" have heard of Wikipedia

I don't know how the data was gotten but I believe more than 50% of internet users in Nigeria use Wikipedia. They might not really know the name, but thanks to Google, Wikipedia is mostly ranked first. If we want to increase the number of Wikipedia users in Nigeria, then we should be looking at increasing the affordability of internet data in accessing it. Thanks to Wikipedia zero, but I think more need to be done in publicizing the service it offers. Many Nigerians do not know they can access Wikipedia for free on Airtel network, we need to advertise this more. I have asked a number of persons and none of them knew about this. Even me that is constant on Wikipedia, only got to know of Wikipedia zero during an arbitration case about a year ago. There was a viral Instagram ad that trended on Nigerian WebSphere sometime ago, something similar to show that Wikipedia is free on Airtel network will be a welcoming idea that will significantly increase users from Nigeria. Regards.