Talk:Wikimedia press releases/One million Wikipedia articles (int'l)

Mandrakesoft

Mandrakesoft have just said that we can publicly announce our partnership with them (see Wikimedia and Mandrakesoft). It would be good if this could be worked into the press release somehow. Also, something about the awards we've won this year could be added based on en:Wikipedia:Press releases/May 2004 (a press release that was never widely sent out). Angela 13:08, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Number of language Wikipedias

How many languages should we say we have? The main stats page says 83, but the latest stats show 92 languages with at least one article, 85 languages with at least ten articles, and 81 with at least fifty articles. --Michael Snow 17:15, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Oh, and Template:Active Wikipedias currently has 102 languages. --Michael Snow 21:55, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

According to en:Wikipedia:Multilingual ranking September 2004, 42 Wikipedias have over 1000 articles. Angela 17:08, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Location in dateline

The first line, currently, is "{date}, 2004 (The Internet):". Having taken journalism, a dateline should always include the physical location of the reporter; I'd imagine the rules for a press release are similar. Should we use "Tampa" or whatever specific location, instead of "The Internet". --24.74.121.185 17:30, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC) (Golbez on en.pedia)

I don't know, it's a good question. The thing is that the Foundation, although registered and organized under Florida law, is not really located anywhere, and the events aren't associated with a particular location. I admit "The Internet" looks funny, and I've wondered whether we could get away with not stating a location at all. I've seen at least some stories appear in major media without a location in the dateline. --Michael Snow 17:42, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The discussion erupted on the french wiki when someone wished to have "Paris" in the location line. It was strongly rejected and replaced by The internet. Why not ? Anthere

Well, the Internet is not typically used as a physical location in media bylines, and I think as Golbez is suggesting it makes the press release look more amateurish (and yes, I know we are amateurs, but when communicating to a professional audience you're better off looking as professional as possible). So I would prefer to leave it out entirely, or else say Tampa, Florida if we feel compelled to put something. --Michael Snow 20:56, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Why not 'The Internet'? That's where we are, aren't we? A lot of users haven't even heard of Tampa... Fruggo 12:43, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Because that simply goes against what the press likes, and if you want them to respect us, we have to play by their rules. -- user:zanimum

See continuation below

Last line

Unlike the rest of Wikimedia's content, the text of this press release is placed into the public domain.

This sentence is just as bad as it was the last time its use was suggested because it is misleading (although strictly speaking correct). I argued for its removal last time and got support and no opposition, but unfortunately the press release had gone into "freeze mode" to allow for translation. I hope I have removed it early enough this time. en:User:Pcb21 22:20 UTC 30/8/2004.

Fine with me (for more detail on Pcb21's reasoning, see en:Wikipedia talk:Press releases/May 2004). Since I started this press release by working from a copy of the old one, there are plenty of relics that may not be worth including. More improvements and rewrites are undoubtedly still needed. --Michael Snow 22:46, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Fund-raising

Hitting the 1 million mark can also be a good fund-raising cue. Could we possibly highlight that this is driven entirely by donations, that Wikipedia is a non-profit, and we are currently looking for new sources of funding to expand our existing projects and launch new projects? Danny 00:31, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I may try to combine/reword some of the existing material to do that, I just haven't figured out how best to do it yet. --Michael Snow 20:21, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

President?

Is Jimmy Wales the President of Wikimedia? I haven't seen that term used anywhere else. The bylaws just call him the Chair of the Board of Trustees. -- Tim Starling 01:48, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Changed. --Michael Snow 20:21, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Use stuff from the recent grant document

There was a good deal of, to my mind, useful material about Wikipedia and its strengths written for the recent grant application. (What was trhe outcome of that - was it ever sent?) I feel that some of this might be reworked and incoporated in this press release. If nobody else does it I will have a go later this week.Apwoolrich 06:58, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Translation

I'd be happy to translate this into Irish for release to the Gaeilge media like TG4. Where do I post it once uploaded, and when'll it be ready for translation? 217.159.81.197 17:52, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It might be best to post it on the Irish Wikipedia since it would be seen by more Irish speakers there than here. Angela 15:31, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

My mistake

I forgot to log on and have added a bit from the Grant application about scope as 213.120.56.33 Apwoolrich 18:13, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia Strengths

"Wikipedia is particularly rich in topics relating to IT, computing and computers, and the Internet. It is also strong in Media topics, such as cinema, television and music."

I feel this is not quite doing us justice. Wikipedia is also strong in other areas: Physics, History, Geography. More specific we might mention that the Art department is lagging behind (famous artists/art movements are covered, but much else is not), or more general Arts & Humanities. Erik Zachte 16:51, Sep 2, 2004 (UTC)

I believe this is stuff copied in from the grant application. It's a starting point, but I'm not sure an extensive discourse on a subjective impression of our strengths and weaknesses should be part of a concise press release. --Michael Snow 20:21, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

OK, better not at all than unbalanced. Erik Zachte 22:04, Sep 2, 2004 (UTC)

I'm happy with the deletion Apwoolrich 06:23, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Since readers of the press release might be curious to know more about what is actually in the Wikipedia, is there a page about this we might add to the links? When I wrote this para for the fund raising page I based it on my, admittedly, superficial use of Wikipedia. I can assert that the current Britannica is not very good for the fields I am interested in, nor is the Web generally, and Wikipedia provides the means of correcting this. Do we have any idea how many pages are unique to Wikipedia and the information they contain appears nowhere else on the Web. If there are many this would be a good selling point to emphasise.Apwoolrich 06:36, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Timetable

On August 29, we had 952,000 articles with 2434 new ones per day. At this rate, we will hit 1 million on September 18. However, in July we were getting 2746 new ones a day, making it September 15. Assuming this earlier date, since people are more likely to write more as we approach the deadline, I suggest we freeze the English version on September 10, leaving 5 days for final translations, which can of course start before the 10th, and just over 2 weeks from the time this page was started for the English version to be written. Angela 17:08, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

My suggested timetable (see Wikimedia press releases) assumed release starting September 15, and I think we should stick with having it ready then. If it takes an extra day or two to cross the threshold, then we can sit on our hands (or go write new articles) while we wait. I had suggested freezing 7 days for translations, but if people think 5 is enough, that works. As stated, anyone who may help translate is welcome to start early, just know that the final version is not set. --Michael Snow 20:21, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I hadn't seen that (I had recollections of that being some weird troll page but it looks sensible now). If you think it can be finished by the 7th, that sounds good. :) Angela 20:29, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

That's because I cleaned out most of the 142 stuff. If people who actually plan to translate want to tell us how much time they need, that would be great. I'll still hope to have everything done by the 7th if possible. --Michael Snow 20:43, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Bla, Bla, Bla

(English: 342,000, German: 137,000, Japanese: 70,000, French: 51,000, Swedish: 39,000, Polish: 37,000, Dutch: 35,000, Spanish: 28,000, Italian: 23,000, Danish: 20,000, Esperanto: 14,000, Portuguese: 14,000, Chinese: 13,000, and Hebrew: 10,000).

The press release kept my attention until the comma just after "The greatest increase in growth has been to the non-English language versions" - We need to loose all the statistics about how many articles there are in each language. I didn't care, and I spend a lot of time here. No one who is reading this for news will care either. KeyStroke

I agree. A list of data like that ruins the readability. We can just link to the stats. Angela 04:24, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I think the data is still of sufficient interest to include, but my suggestion would be to move it further back in the content of the press release. I was planning to do some rearranging of the content to accomplish that (move our recent awards up higher, for example), but hadn't decided how best to do it yet. How does that idea strike anyone? --Michael Snow 04:27, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Ok, it might not look so bad nearer the end. Angela 04:36, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Is it just me?

...Or does this press reliese sound a bit too much like an advatisment then a press release? explaining how NPOV and recent changes works seems slightly strange, as does this line It is arguably more accurate and unbiased than some regular media sources due to its NPOV standards. or are we forgeting that it might not be a good idea to say that about the very people who will run + publisese thisd project, eg the bieset news orginisations?

Jimmy's email

"wikia.org": is this correct or a typo? Tomos 10:35, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Actually, it's wikia.com, and it is correct. Wikia.com is a separate site connected to Jimbo's interests outside of Wikipedia. Apparently this has replaced his older Bomis email address. --Michael Snow 02:59, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Wikia is a for-profit company so the .com is right. However, Jimbo ought to get a wikimedia.org address before this press release goes out. Angela 04:05, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Ought to meaning it is anticipated that he will (what will it be, then), or simply that he should? --Michael Snow 04:10, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC) Oh, sorry, looks like you've already changed it. --Michael Snow 04:13, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Donation

It is good that the press release mentions to the amount raised so far. I thought it would be nice to mention that it comes "from all over the world" or "from many different parts of the world." But how true of a characterization is it? I recall donations come at least from Europe, US, Canada, and Japan. Does anyone know more? Tomos 10:35, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The Claim is too understated

In the intro it states that it is currently the world's largest and fastest-growing open-content encyclopedia.

Surely Wikipedia is the worlds largest and fastest growing encyclopedia. The qualification with the term open-content just weakens the impact of this statement. 80.40.54.5 00:22, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I agree. I moved 'open-content' earlier in the paragraph. Angela 04:36, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Not all the contents are in GFDL

There is a part that says that all wikipedia contents are under GFDL. But if I remember correctly, some Wikipedias allow CC-by or CC-by-nc images, or other non-GFDL'd contents. "Virtually all" contents are under GFDL, I would say, to be a bit more precise. Any opinion?

Tomos 04:49, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps saying all text is GFDL would be better? Angela 04:05, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

That seems to be how we currently finesse the issue. --Michael Snow 04:10, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Too long

removed text:

Wikipedia is increasingly being used as a resource by students, journalists, and anyone who needs a starting point for research. In addition to traditional encyclopedic coverage of topics, Wikipedia is able to react quickly to current events and to provide information almost as soon as it happens. This is invaluable for educational uses, as teachers and students need to be up to date. Wikipedia's large number of diverse contributors and its dedication to neutrality make it especially reliable and unbiased. Since there is little in the way of space limitations on Wikipedia, it also aims to subsume the functions of many specialist encyclopedias. Unlike a paper encyclopedia, Wikipedia can encompass articles with both elementary and advanced treatments of the same subject.

Wikipedia carries topics not covered as comprehensively elsewhere on the Internet, and enables expert writers to share their knowledge with a modicum of effort. Indeed, Wikipedia allows specialist scholarly material a far wider dissemination and larger reach than any print media can achieve.

Modern print encyclopedias have to make space for new topics by jettisoning old ones. This is particularly true in regards to science and technology topics. Wikipedia provides a vehicle where a more balanced record of such topics can be maintained, thus materially contributing to history resources.

The press release has become much too long. The above sections are not relevant to the topic (ie - 1 million articles being reached), but are more about the background of how Wikipedia works and the benefits of it. This can be linked to since there are plenty of articles which cover this. I see little benefit in putting it here as well. Perhaps a summarized version could replace it if anyone feels it is important. Angela 04:29, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Agree with respect to length, but some background material is needed. Also, I'm a little concerned about putting too many links into the press release, and especially relying on links to give needed information. People often scan right over links in reading, and in quite a few cases may end up looking at a hard copy where the links are a lot less useful. --Michael Snow 04:34, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Fundraising numbers

Carried over from the last press release, we say the Wikimedia Foundation has raised US$50,000 to support its projects. It's a little difficult for me to come up with cumulative numbers since we only have reports through June, which doesn't include the most recent major fundraising cycle. My rough calculation would be that the Foundation has raised at least US$80,000 by now, but I may not have covered everything. Can somebody confirm whether or not we've reached US$100,000 total, which would be a nice round number to use? --Michael Snow 04:46, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The license also allows third parties the right to reuse Wikipedia articles as long as they pass on that right to others

The license also allows third parties the right to reuse Wikipedia articles as long as they pass on that right to others

Hello! There is a big discussion at the Bulgarian translation talk page about this phrase. We think it is a very important line and it needs much more attention.

Reading the GNU FDL one can see that:

• the possession, use or reuse of the content is not covered by the FDL except the warranty disclaimer;
• FDL (pass that right to others) concerns only the publication and redistribution of the content so you will probably wish to add one of these words;
• the same rights are passed not to any "others", but exactly to those who recieve the content. In fact, a publisher should not say "I already passed that right to others (my wife) so I will not give you the text source files in a readable format";
• if changes are made, they are marked as such and also covered by the FDL (this may be omitted in the PR).

So, in our language we will choose a phrase that reflects those points: (something like) The license also allows third parties to reuse and redistribute Wikipedia articles as long as, with the content, they pass on the same rights to others. Please consider this before "freezing" the PR. Sorry for my bad English. --5ko 07:22, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Your English is better than my Bulgarian. My thoughts - I don't think we can afford to spend too much time on the GFDL given the function of a press release. It needs to summarize important points, but we can't digress into a how-to manual on complying with the terms of the license when republishing Wikipedia content. In English, I believe "reuse" is sufficiently clear, because it implies copying or republication of some sort, and that implicates the license. Everything else (reading and citing) would be described as "use", not "reuse". Again, we're shooting for general understanding here, not technical precision. But if the sentence fails to convey the ideas well enough when translated, accounting for that is the judgment of the translator. If in Bulgarian you need to write something that, if translated back to English, would read more like your sentence above, by all means please use your best judgment on that. --Michael Snow 21:00, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

... "reuse" [...] implies copying or republication of some sort: thank you for this, it makes more sense now. We'll try to best express the general idea. --5ko 21:40, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Distributing the release

Despite a recent computer malfunction, I believe I have an Excel chart of all of our previous PR recipients, organized in columns like their name, e-mail, location, format (newspaper, TV, radio, web). I'll upload this in a bit. -- user:zanimum

Until I get home, can people start adding new outlets to Wikimedia press releases/One million Wikipedia articles/New outlets. -- user:zanimum

Ready to freeze?

Okay, this is the last call. I've done everything that I plan to do with the text, and other edits seem to have petered out. I think pretty much everything here on the talk page has been addressed in some fashion. Can we go ahead and freeze the content in place? If I don't hear any objections over the next little while, I'm going to call this the final version. --Michael Snow 01:53, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I put a proposed alternate final paragraph there. Is that the place for a pep talk? It feels unprofessional. I also made changes which I hope tightened up the other paras; but I haven't been following the ongoing edits closely; if I undid someone's careful wording, I apologize in advance. Thanks for getting this tied down so quickly!  :-) +sj+ 05:39, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I liked the alternate final paragraph and worked it in to replace some of what was there before. In a few cases I went back to the previous version, and I also broke things up to avoid one-sentence paragraphs. The less reasons editors have to nitpick over this, the better. Also, journalism tends toward shorter sentences overall, and since press releases are sometimes very much cut-and-pasted into stories, it's useful to provide the content in digestible chunks that a later writer can use this way. --Michael Snow 06:01, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Freeze

The press release is now frozen to allow time for translation. Please do not make any more changes to the text. --Michael Snow 14:07, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

English version separated into two versions

(revert - why are you changing spellings? If you need a BE one, please make it a new translation) - Angela

I did. Chameleon 18:07, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Local Versions of press release?

I know it's been frozen but I thought I'd give my 2¢ worth. As a journalist myself, I thought the press release was fine (if a little long) but there was nothing of the all-important local angle that catches the attention of journalists. If this is already being dealt with then people can happily stop reading this now but there's nothing better for a journalist than finding out that a big international project such as wikipedia has x number of participants in his or her city, with perhaps one of them being able to be contacted for comment. A line about an exceptionally good article covering something of local interest would also make the average journalist salivate. All this may be beyond current capabilities but could be something worth considering in the future. --Roisterer 05:38, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It seems to have been decided on fr than "Internet" is better than "Paris", but I see that it seems to have been decided that "Tampa, Florida" is better than "the Internet". Does this latter decision prevail over fr, i.e. should it go back to "Paris"... or to "Tampa, Florida"... or stay as "Internet"? I think we should decide here what each localised version should have. The people on each local version will probably have the final say, but we should at least formulate a policy here.

Personally, I think Tampa looks bad on all but the en-us versions. The others should decide between just the Internet or some local city (ideally both the place where the contributors physically are and also a major city in a country speaking that language). I'm the translator into Spanish and I'm in w:Valencia, Spain's third-largest city. Should I put that? Or Tampa? Or the Internet? Chameleon 13:33, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The point about "the Internet" is that in journalism, the dateline is generally expected to have a location, and the Internet looks funny as a location. More so, at least in my opinion, than saying Tampa on a non-US version. Unfortunately, Tampa is really the only place we have to point to as a location for Wikimedia. If we had offices of some sort elsewhere, I think it would be fine to put those instead as appropriate. Paris and Berlin might be acceptable if we are saying that those are the headquarters of the now-organized French and German Wikimedia chapters. But picking some major city and/or location of selected contributors has the arbitrariness and bias that led fr to prefer "the Internet" over "Paris" originally. If there are serious problems with using Tampa on translated versions, I'm not going to force it down people's throats, but I would say that if you're not using Tampa, putting nothing in its place is better than replacing it with "the Internet". --Michael Snow 18:41, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

About items of local interest, the translation page does indicate that people can add such items (e.g. something particular about the given language Wikipedia), but obviously it's difficult to specify what should be said. Also, individuals in any language sending the press release to local media could identify themselves as a local contact person and, if they have something worthwhile to mention, add a brief item of local interest to the press release itself when sending it. --Michael Snow 18:47, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Ambiguous wording in "en-gb"

"creation of the 1,000,000 article" should be changed to "creation of the one millionth article" as in en-us. 216.177.2.141 20:08, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

That discrepancy came about in an edit by 24.48.157.14, but I've fixed it. People might like to check what else was changed in that edit. Chameleon 20:29, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Date of release

Jimbo, Anthere, Angela and others have been discussing the press release, and we would believe it would be very beneficial to time it to coincide with a fundraising drive. Unfortunately, we do not have the site set up correctly for this yet. We need the Wikimedia Fundraising pages translated and put on the Foundation website, and for the wikis to be informed about the upcoming drive.

For this reason, we request that the press release not be sent out until Monday 20th September. Angela (on behalf of Wikimedia) 00:07, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Agreed, I'm trying to let people know and make sure the date gets changed everywhere that I know about. --Michael Snow 04:13, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

So when will/do/did we actually reach 1 million ?

We reached 1 million on either September 18 or September 19. Jeff8765 00:27, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Northern hemisphere

Wikipedia would double in size again by next spring.

For me this shows a strong northern hemisphere bias. Perhaps it can be reworded to be suitable for the "International English" version? In the Afrikaans version I translated it with "in about six months". Is that at least also correct? A literal translation would, of course, be entirely incorrect for just about all Afrikaans speakers. --Alias 21:15, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Ah yes, I didn't think of that. It's good to change it for the international version. Chameleon 08:19, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

(from WP village pump) Million-article press release distribution

For everyone who is planning to help distribute the press release, the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees has asked that we delay the official announcement until Monday, September 20. This will allow us to work on translating the Foundation's website into other languages, to take advantage of the publicity.

In the meantime, please plan ahead in terms of where you want to send the press release. This would be a good time to start contacting media organizations so that you can determine the right contact person to send the press release to. --Michael Snow 04:37, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)