User:Arknascar44/Signpost/Special



Banner project reaches 100 Ads
 * By Arknascar44, 29 October, 2007

As of 27 October 2007, the Wikipedia ads project reached one hundred ads. The project, started by, draws attention to certain aspects of Wikipedia, such as adminship, policies and guidelines, and WikiProjects, when users add the images to their userpage. The banners made by the project were originally called "Qxz ads", as the template resided in the userspace of, an alternate account of , but was later moved to the template namespace. the 100th ad to Wikimedia Commons. The 99th ad was created later.

Adding the template to your userpage
To add the Wikipedia Ads template to your userpage, put the text wikipedia ads on it, which produces

Ad requests
If you want someone to create an ad for you, and  are accepting requests. When they or anyone else creates an ad, it is added to the list on the project page.

Interview
Here, some questions are asked to, , , the main contributors to the project.


 * Why do you think that the banner project is important to Wikipedia?
 * Gurch: It isn't. It's a silly idea I thought up when I was bored and wanted to see whether I could get away with running ads in my userspace. People then started transcluding them into their own userspace and demanding I make one for their pet WikiProject; I eventually moved the ad box into the template namespace so that other people could do this instead. On reflection, it's the single worst idea I've had since I began participating in this project. Now I know how the inventor of userboxes must feel.
 * Miranda: First and foremost, Wikipedia is a community of editors working to create a reliable encyclopedia. I believe the banner project is important because the project helps Wikipedians with similar interests and knowledge fields to connect with each other through Wikiprojects. In addition, certain policies — such as WP:BITE — and tools — like TWINKLE are highlighted. To improve and create quality articles for the encyclopedia, people need to be aware of the projects and policies. The banner ads are a good way to advertise what is available to new and old Wikipedians to see how they can expand knowledge on the site. Gurch's ads helped to influence ad creations on Arabic, Georgian, and Polish Wikipedias. Thus, the impact of Gurch's ads are seen as universally impacted throughout Wikipedia language sites. Hopefully, this will continue.
 * PPG: Actually its far from a silly idea.  The project leads new users to helpful resources and policies more effectively than the boilerplate  template or introduction page.  It not only directs contributers to projects they may be interested in but provides exposure for the WikiProject to significantly develop and expand; this also applies to future ads for Wikimedia sister projects that are being considered to be created.
 * What was your favorite ad to create and why?
 * Gurch: This one, because it's the only one that's actually true.
 * Miranda: Image:Qxz-ad63.gif and Image:Qxz-ad66.gif. The reason that I chose those two is due to integrating the colors and state flag seals with the message.
 * PPG: It would be the ad I created for WikiProject Cats, merely because I simply adore anything to do with cats (and the fact that it features a cat whom is sitting on my desk at the moment).
 * What software programs to you use to create the banners?
 * Gurch: Adobe ImageReady.
 * Miranda: Microsoft GIF Animator and GIMP.
 * PPG: A combo of Adobe PhotoShop and Adobe ImageReady.


 * What are the drawbacks of creating an ad?
 * Gurch: Creating all those ads was for the most part a complete waste of many hours of my time. A significant number of people hate them and would like nothing better than to see them all deleted; despite this, a self-listing at Templates for Deletion failed. Finally, despite thousands of infinitely more useful contributions to the project all I'll be remembered for is these bloody ads... – Gurch 01:39, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Miranda: In my experience, the ads take too much time to make and causes me to miss other opportunities that I can improve the encyclopedia, such as creating articles. Also, creating the ads are voluntary. We are not paid for creating ads on the website. Currently, I am retired from making ads to focus on other fields in the encyclopedia.
 * PPG: As mentioned above, time!  It does take several hours of my free time and its hard to keep with the demand for ads.


 * Miranda, what inspired you to create the 100th ad?
 * Miranda: I created the 100th ad based upon Wikimania 2008 in Alexandria, Egypt. I wanted to create an ad which would be remembered as connecting Wikipedians from all across the world.


 * How can a person create an ad?:
 * Miranda: See this.