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CentralNotice/Request/Wiki-Tolmach

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Wiki-Tolmach edit

Central Notice Settings

What is the campaign duration?
  • 15th November 2019 → 30th November 2019
Which projects will you be targeting?
  • Wikipedia, Commons,
What languages will you be targeting?
  • One Language (Russian)
Do you wish to show banners to Logged In users, Anonymous Users or Both? Do you want to target users with a specific number of edits or average monthly?
  • Both: Logged In and Anonymous Users

What countries will your campaign target?

  • Russia

Banner/Campaign Diet:

  • 1 impression per week

What is the purpose of the campaign? How will you measure the success of the campaign? edit

Description - The Wiki-Tolmach (Wiki-Interpreter) contest is about rephrasing Russian Wikipedia articles on complicated scientific and phylosophical topics to make them accessible to lay-persons (but preserving scientific accuracy). It is organized in the following nominations:
  1. improvement of preambles (lead paragraphs) of the articles,
  2. explanatory graphic illustrations, and
  3. descriptive inserts in simple wording.

What banner(s) will you use? What will be your landing page? edit

Banners -

 
 
Конкурс «Вики-Толмач»
Редактируйте статьи и загружайте иллюстрации до 30 ноября! Более 40 ценных призов!

Landing Page - RUS

Community notification text edit

This is sample notification that can be used for mass message delivery to targeted WP's forums, as described @ Usage guidelines:

  • EN: Dear colleagues, please comment on CentralNotice banner proposal for Wiki-Tolmach 2019 (part of the Wiki Science Contest) uploads illustrations & article contest. (1 September - 30 Novembre, all IPs from Russia, Wp//Commons, 1 banner impression per one weeks). Thank you.
  • RU: Уважаемые коллеги, пожалуйста выскажите своё мнение по поводу баннерной кампании CentralNotice для объявления о российском викимарафоне и конкурсе научных фотографий Вики-Толмач 2019 (1 сентября - 30 ноября, все IP из России, Википедии/Викисклад, 1 показ в неделю). Спасибо.

Notifications edit

  • Wikimedia Commons - ru
  • Wikipedia - ru

Discussion edit

  • This proposal overlaps with Wiki Loves Monuments (Sept. 1-30), which is a bigger event having a much higher impact on all Wikimedia projects, not only Russian Wikipedia. Article-writing contests (edit-a-thons) in ru.wp are highly specialized and typically attract only a handful of participants. The highest level of participation was 73 in the last 2 years, and it's more like 30-40 on average. In contrast, WLM Russia has the stable record of about 900 participants per year, about 80% being new users, and gives a much better outreach. Last year it was advised by the Central Notice administrator that only one banner campaign should be run at a time. In this case, it seems logical to choose Wiki Loves Monuments for September, because the edit-a-thon will continue in October, and advertising edit-a-thons via the Central Notice has never had any serious effect on the level of participation, especially among new users. --Alexander (talk) 20:31, 10 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Support This Wiki Tolmach competition is very important because it covers the most popular wikipedia articles about science. This is a competition not only of articles, but also of scientific illustrations. This is part of the famouse Wiki Science Contest (Ex: c:Commons:European Science Photo Competition 2015, etc.). Two banners (Wiki Loves Monuments and Wiki Science: Wiki Tolmach) will not interfere with each other. On the contrary, complement each other. Wiki Tolmach is very large competition with good prizes for Wikipedians is software (Ex: Adobe, etc.) and best software training courses. — Niklitov (talk) 14:14, 11 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Support Both Wiki-Tolmach & Wiki Loves Monuments are important & it's OK to have more than one banner campaign running at once. + all Wikipedias in the languages of Russia will benefit from Russian Wikipedia being seen like a more credible resource within the country.--Frhdkazan (talk) 17:40, 30 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Support An unique competition that can provide valuable experience. --Dmitry Rozhkov (talk) 15:15, 31 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Support Wiki-Tolmach project is going to help to improve clearness of the part of Wikipedia that is most used by the readers: articles preambles (both text and leading infographics), in most popular scientific articles. And it is not just about improving some number of articles, but also about elaboration of approaches that may be scaled and used in other articles and language editions of Wikipedia. So, if we talk about importance, it may be even much more important for the future of Wikipedia. I know both contests well, being involved in both, and I'm convinced they both are important. However, we don't have to compare the levels of importance, as Wiki-Tolmach and WLM suit quite well to coexist succesfully, as they target quite different groups of contributors that almost never intersect: WLM targets photographers, while Wiki-Tolmach targets writers/editors/reviewers and illustrators. Dr Bug (Vladimir V. Medeyko) 19:30, 31 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Let me just point out that this and the three other support votes are from the Wikimedia RU members, and Wikimedia RU is the beneficiary of the contest in question, as they will receive sponsor money from it. There has been no support from uninvolved community members, and in fact the community raised an important critique that, sadly, has not been addressed by the organizers. --Alexander (talk) 07:29, 1 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  •   Oppose after a more careful look at the landing page. In my opinion, the contest is not well prepared and organized in a non-professional manner. First, the organizers offer people to edit a subset of 175 pages chosen by unnamed experts. Even a brief check shows that at least the part of this subset related to maths and natural sciences was prepared without consulting any real experts or Wikipedia editors. A topic in chemistry with a reasonably good Wikipedia article is on the list, while a similar chemistry topic with a very short article is not. A topic in physics is chosen, while another topic required for explaining the former, is not. Basically, efforts of editors will be channeled into editing 175 randomly chosen articles, which is neither the point of the contest, nor an efficient usage of the Central Notice.
Second, the jury comprises three Wikimedia RU members having no expertise in maths, natural or Earth sciences that, on the other hand, encompass at least half of the content that will be (presumably) generated during this contest. It basically means that the organizers have not made an effort of composing a diverse and professional jury. --Alexander (talk) 07:29, 1 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  Comment Competition Pertner — Russian Academy of Sciences. The scientific nature of the article is evaluated by experts in each specialty. The popular science style is fascinated by scientific journalists. The jury sums up. The list of the most popular articles came from a Vsenauka research project that lasted several months. Also, the participant can take any scientific article. All this is written in the regulations on the competition and on the page of the Wiki Tolmach competition. — Niklitov (talk) 07:31, 2 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Summary comment edit

In order to help to move the situation forward (and it urgently should go forward, because the competition is started, and it needs the Central Notice in order to increase awareness), I will now try to check all the objections (both raised here or on the contests' talk page).

  • The intersection with WLM is not an issue anymore, because WLM campaign is over. The period is ajusted accordingly.
  • It's wrong to claim that edit-a-thons don't gain from the Central Notices. For example, there are CEE Spring and Asian Month edit-a-thons that use Central Notices and get participants and overall awareness among both Wikimedians and external world. (We're organizing Russian part of these competitions.) On the other hand, we organized Russian part of similar international Finno-Ugric topic edit-a-thon, that did NOT use the Central Notice, and got few participant, and almost nobody knows about it even among Wikimedians, and therefore Finno-Ugric topic loses coverage. (I understand that it is not a maid of stone proof of usefullness of the Central Notice, but at least it's real experience.)
  • Wiki-Tolmach seems to especially need more attention, because it's the first time when we try to engage a significant number of scientists (as experts) in counteractions with Wikimedia and Wikipedia. It would be a pity to lose both opportunities of further engagement of those scientists, and to overcome a common reluctance among scientists to deal with Wikipedia due to fears that it may negatively impact their reputation.
  • And I would like to stress yet another time - this contest is conducted in cooperation with Russian Academy of Sciences (if you need more details, it is supported on the level of Alexey Khokhlov, the vice president of Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Commission for Popularisation of Science of Russian Academy of Sciences, which he heads).
  • I wish to stress that money received by Wikimedia RU for this contest are fixed, the money are not anyhow tied to Central Notice or even outcome of the contest in general. Wikimedia RU wishes this contest to be successful purely due to interests of Wikimedia movement. We consider this contest a quite important experiment (particularly due to engagement of scientinsts) and hopefully a base for further improvements in the probably most important part of Wikipedia - the articles on scientific topics.
  • The 175 articles are not selected randomly. These are the most viewed scientific topic articles that contain evident gaps in preambles. Articles with no such gaps, for example Featured articles and Good articles were removed from the list. Moreover, it is not an obligatory list, it's an advisory list of the articles that need attention foremost, but the contest participant may work on other scientific topic articles. Because the list contains the most exposed articles, their improvement means that efforts of the participants will have maximum gain for the Wikipedia readers.
  • The jury is competent enough to do the job it appointed to. First, the jury consists of both experienced Wikimedians, and non-wikimedians (journalists) specialized in popularisations of science. The primary task of Wikimedian part of the jury is to ensure that the contest and its outcome maximally fits Wikimedia movement/Wikipedia project rules, principles, practices and interests. Second, all member of the jury posess high education, and have general interest in sciences, and therefore are able to understand scientific topic articles; also they can anytime consult scientists experts in specific topics when it is necessary.
  • The contest page is made much more compact now. Maybe something lost during the compactification, but anyhow it removed all objections to the wording.
  • The limitation that the contestants must be Russian residents only is lifted because the coorganizers found a way how to legally award foreigners.

If I missed any significant objection, please write. Dr Bug (Vladimir V. Medeyko) 09:10, 24 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Central Notice admin comments edit

I've asked other central notice administrators to review this. I hope we can close this discussion in a week or so. Best, --Martin Urbanec (talk) 14:33, 5 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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