Wikipedia talk:Building Wikipedia membership

I (snoyes) moved the following comment from Building Wikipedia membership here, because it added nothing of importance to the article:
 * "I just showed up today because the latest issue of Netsurfers Digest had a mention of it. -- corvus13"

Hi, I've mentioned this before and thought I'd mention it again. As I'm browsing the pedia I find articles that might interest friends/coworkers. I pop them a link in a quick hello message and ask them if they confirm the accuracy of the content...the response so far has been first one of wonder, then awe, then enthusiasm! And it's been a nice way to relate to some folks I'm not often in contact with. Anyway, I searched for evangelism and came up with nada around the 'pedia. Is there a place for sharing an evangelical/ 'help us' message of wikipedia? --dgd


 * There's some stuff at Building Wikipedia membership. (Hint which wouldn't help here but may in general: after searching, go to the "Power search" box at the bottom of the screen and check the box for the 'Wikipedia' namespace. You'll get various about, help, documentation, etc pages that aren't supposed to show up when you're searching for encyclopedia articles.) Also check the Meta-wikipedia where we keep general project discussion and misc stuff. --Brion 20:42 Oct 22, 2002 (UTC)


 * How about doing what a lot of news web pages do? They have a box at the bottom, "Send this article to a friend" with some kind of java mailer to ship it off and a box for you to add a signed message. Ortolan88
 * I like that idea too. Especially, and I know this would require more overhead, but a way to keep my list of folks in memory so I don't have to open my email client (which may not be available esp, as I'm a student and working on diff. machines).

Has anyone considered encoraging educators to organize Wikipedia contributions as part of classroom projects? I can see several benefits: Brianiac 17:57, 20 Sep 2003 (UTC)
 * Reports would at least provide stub articles, rather than simply being discarded or filed.
 * Photography/Journalism students could contribute pictures.
 * Educators and librarians may start to consider it an excellent starting point for research.
 * Wikipedia awareness would increase significantly, and kids who found value in it would become lifelong users (and possibly contributors).

I changed:


 * And be sure to offer a link back, at least from Friends of Wikipedia--you can point out that they can put in links, themselves, on other pages, if they wish.

to:


 * And be sure to offer a link back, from Friends of Wikipedia.

It seems like an awfully bad idea to give preferential treatment to anyone in our regular encyclopedia articles. We'll advertise for you if you link to us, that sort of thing... Axlrosen 16:09, 19 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I suggest a merger of Publicity into this article. Please comment there. (Alexander Konovalenko 18:09, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC))

Merge implemented
The proposed merger from Wikipedia:Publicity has been completed. -- Beland 00:36, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Targeted advertising partnerships and using Wikipedia articles to answer questions
I own a Google Group named Minors Major (http://groups.google.com/group/MinorsMajor) which is for bored teen chat. We became the most active Google Group for teen chat through targeted advertising. Targeted advertising is somewhat like Google AdSense. In the case of Minors Major, since it is a teen chat group, we formed an advertising partnership with RuneScape World (http://groups.google.com/group/RuneScape-World). Since RuneScape World is a group dedicated to RuneScape, an online game which is very popular among teens, forming an advertising partnership with them was a wise decision that gained us many members. The terms of the advertising partnership were simple: RuneScape World advertises Minors Major, and Minors Major advertises RuneScape World. For Wikipedia, we must think about who would want to edit Wikipedia if they knew about it, and then approach these people and get them to join in the editing. I'm new to editing Wikipedia, so I don't know anyone who would love to edit Wikipedia, but I'll advertise Wikipedia in my Google Group, since I posted a link to my group here! In my group, we chat about a lot of things. My friend often asks for help with her homework (mostly research essays) on my group. Normally, we will pinpoint her to a Wikipedia article and several other good sources as a basis for her research essay. For example, if she had a research essay on H5N1 avian influenza, we would pinpoint her to the Wikipedia article on H5N1. I hope this helps, and if it does, I hope more Wikipedians use this means to get more new Wikipedians. Of course, this only encourages users to read, not to write, but I became a Wikipedia writer because I enjoyed the high quality Wikipedia articles on my favourite websites, and spotted several favourite websites of mine that did not have an article although they deserved one.

What;'s up with the notice?
Hi guys,

Why's there a notice on the main article page that says the following?:

I think we should get this article moving because (in my opinion) wikipedia is one of the best, if not the best, encyclopedia. Especially since you can voice your input and make changes etc...

--EChronicle 17:19, 22 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree. In addition, to newcomers who read the Contributing to Wikipedia, and then on publicity to get to this page, it might be confusing to encounter that notice, the first thing they'll see. Perhaps they'll think the whole page is obsolete. Mortsggah 07:32, 22 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Absolutely agree, I got here from the Contributing to Wikipedia page, and wondered if this page was pretty much dead. Voyaging (talk) 17:39, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Related stuff - couldn't this be a project?
(... or is it already a project?)

Anyway, after seeing Newbie Recruitment Initiative, I was thinking it'd be better as a project, and proposed User:Flammifer/Wikiproject New member recruitment, which I now realize is pretty damn redundant :P

Differences I see:
 * Focusing on recruiting *editors*, and telling people they can come and edit
 * Having a WikiProject dedicated to this, because, well, it is a project :)

Any thoughts? Is there already a project for making editors? If no, should we make one? :)

Citing as a source -concerns?
I'm a bit peeved about the suggestion to cite Wikipedia as a source (Building_Wikipedia_membership), especially because Academic use explicitly discourages students from citing any type of encyclopedia (Wikipedia included) as a source for a research paper. Many colleges are now banning Wikipedia as a source, and an unfortunate student could click the link to this page in the upper-right corner, and see the suggestion to cite Wikipedia. This would not be a good thing. I any of us would want to put a student in that position for the sole purpose of advertising. --Hojimachongtalk 05:49, 9 September 2007 (UTC)