Potential Wikipedia WikiProject RISC OS (WikiProject Computing - Acorn/RISC OS task force)

[trevj]

Why don't we further coordinate the Wikipedia articles related to RISC
OS? It'd be quite a task but wouldn't require a great deal in the way
of technical skills. There's a lot of knowledge and discussion around
but unfortunately it doesn't all seem to make it onto Wikipedia.

(Please note that I'm *not* suggesting that detailed wiki pages from
riscos.info and the PRMs, etc. be migrated to Wikipedia!)

I know that a good number of people contribute at some length to
Wikipedia, and there are some concerted efforts to coordinate things.
However, I'm sure there's still scope to present a more unified RISC
OS presence. Newcomers (and there may optimistically be one or two of
them) have a reasonable amount of online info to refer to. However,
one of the first places they may look to for (hopefully accurate and
unbiased) background info may be Wikipedia. Other computer platforms
and specialist interest areas run their own projects/task forces so
perhaps we can too.

I've put a few notes on the RISC OS talk page, here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:RISC_OS

You'll hopefully agree that it's more appropriate for discussion to
take place there in preference to here: that way, it'll all be in one
place. You don't need to sign up to Wikipedia to comment... but if you
do, you'll already be part of the way to joining the project ;-)

Note: If you're unfamiliar with wikis, it's probably worth visiting
the Sandbox first! Thanks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sandbox

Finally, you may wonder why I've not posted this to c.s.a.announce.
Well, if/when we have a task force, then that'll be something to
announce!

[Theo Markettos]

trevj <tr...@cwazy.co.uk> wrote:
> I know that a good number of people contribute at some length to
> Wikipedia, and there are some concerted efforts to coordinate things.
> However, I'm sure there's still scope to present a more unified RISC
> OS presence. Newcomers (and there may optimistically be one or two of
> them) have a reasonable amount of online info to refer to. However,
> one of the first places they may look to for (hopefully accurate and
> unbiased) background info may be Wikipedia. Other computer platforms
> and specialist interest areas run their own projects/task forces so
> perhaps we can too.

Sounds like a good idea. Just keeping things up to date is a starting
point.

Somewhere gives stats for Wikipedia: I noticed that the RISC_OS page got
about 5000 hits a day. How many of these are automated I don't know (more
obscure pages get a few hundreds), but obviously it's getting a fair amount
of readership.

Theo

[trevj]

Thanks, Theo. I've added your comments to the talk page.

And, coincidentally, I see that the overall computing collaboration is
proposed to be restarted next month:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Computing#Restarting_the_computing_collaboration
...although there aren't currently enough people listed to actually do
this!

Anyway, I've nominated RISC OS all the same:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Computing/Collaboration#Starting_up_January_2011

[patric]

Not sure about that. Apart from your ultimate goal of raising the public
profile of RISC OS,
what do you want to do specifically? I'm not familiar with the Amiga
community or their
Wikipedia coverage, so can't compare.
I could imagine reading an in depth analysis of the legal implications of
selling beagle boxes with
a pre-installed version of RO5 but that doesn't make it relevant for the
rest of the world.

OTOH I would agree that the main entry for RISC OS is terrible.

Patric