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Bertelsmann publishes "Wikipedia Encyclopedia in One Volume"

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dgerard at gmail

Apr 23, 2008, 9:17 AM

Post #26 of 61 (4190 views)
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Re: Bertelsmann publishes "Wikipedia Encyclopedia in One Volume" [In reply to]

On 23/04/2008, Mary Murrell <mary_murrell [at] yahoo> wrote:

> I'd like to see a book publishing contract that is committed to GFDL. Does anyone have one they could share?

I don't have one to hand, but O'Reilly published a pile of books under
various free content licenses, including GFDL. Dead tree books anyone
can copy. It's a model that's worked for others.

- d.

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mathias.schindler at gmail

Apr 23, 2008, 9:28 AM

Post #27 of 61 (4200 views)
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Re: Bertelsmann publishes "Wikipedia Encyclopedia in One Volume" [In reply to]

On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 11:26 AM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
<cimonavaro [at] gmail> wrote:

> I wonder if I am the only one whose first thought is that someone
> might buy this book and then spend the rest of their life finding
> all the people who contributed, and ask them for an autograph.

:) autograph session hall 2, row C booth 749.

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andreengels at gmail

Apr 23, 2008, 9:36 AM

Post #28 of 61 (4198 views)
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Re: Bertelsmann publishes "Wikipedia Encyclopedia in One Volume" [In reply to]

One thing that I haven't seen mentioned yet in this thread is that by
taking only the introductions (which is indeed necessary to get
anything close to 50,000 articles into 1000 pages), Bertelsmann in my
feeling is removing most of the usefulness from Wikipedia. There will
be articles where that's okay, but there will plenty of articles which
are excellent in the current form, but become worse-than-trivial if
reduced to one-paragraph stubs.

I guess for Bertelsmann and for Wikipedia such a book would be ok, but
a reader would be more served with one volume out of a series of
books, each of them containing something like 1000 or 2000 complete
Wikipedia articles on some broad subject.

--
Andre Engels, andreengels [at] gmail
ICQ: 6260644 -- Skype: a_engels

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mathias.schindler at gmail

Apr 23, 2008, 9:44 AM

Post #29 of 61 (4198 views)
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Re: Bertelsmann publishes "Wikipedia Encyclopedia in One Volume" [In reply to]

On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 6:36 PM, Andre Engels <andreengels [at] gmail> wrote:

> I guess for Bertelsmann and for Wikipedia such a book would be ok, but
> a reader would be more served with one volume out of a series of
> books, each of them containing something like 1000 or 2000 complete
> Wikipedia articles on some broad subject.

There is a large number of possible options how to design and
implement a printed encyclopedia. And when it comes to usefulness,
one-volume concise encyclopedias are very much limited anyway.

This is not an XOR decision. Anyone can come up with a practical
solution how to fill content originating in Wikipedia into dead trees.
And I would like to hear them all :)

Mathias

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putevod at mccme

Apr 23, 2008, 10:00 AM

Post #30 of 61 (4202 views)
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Re: Bertelsmann publishes "Wikipedia Encyclopedia in One Volume" [In reply to]

I disagree with that. In my opinion, for a general encyclopaedia having
one volume with say 10K one-paragraph articles is much better than 1K
one-page articles. The latter format would be good for a specialized one,
like Encyclopaedia of Music or of Chemistry. But if one really wants to
get a quick idea what the name or the subject he/she has overheard is
about it is much better to have more shorter articles. Additional
information is readily available anyway, in particular, in Wikipedia.

Cheers,
Yaroslav

> One thing that I haven't seen mentioned yet in this thread is that by
> taking only the introductions (which is indeed necessary to get
> anything close to 50,000 articles into 1000 pages), Bertelsmann in my
> feeling is removing most of the usefulness from Wikipedia. There will
> be articles where that's okay, but there will plenty of articles which
> are excellent in the current form, but become worse-than-trivial if
> reduced to one-paragraph stubs.
>
> I guess for Bertelsmann and for Wikipedia such a book would be ok, but
> a reader would be more served with one volume out of a series of
> books, each of them containing something like 1000 or 2000 complete
> Wikipedia articles on some broad subject.
>
>
> --
> Andre Engels, andreengels [at] gmail
> ICQ: 6260644 -- Skype: a_engels
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l [at] lists
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

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dgerard at gmail

Apr 23, 2008, 10:03 AM

Post #31 of 61 (4189 views)
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Re: Bertelsmann publishes "Wikipedia Encyclopedia in One Volume" [In reply to]

On 23/04/2008, Andre Engels <andreengels [at] gmail> wrote:

> One thing that I haven't seen mentioned yet in this thread is that by
> taking only the introductions (which is indeed necessary to get
> anything close to 50,000 articles into 1000 pages), Bertelsmann in my
> feeling is removing most of the usefulness from Wikipedia. There will
> be articles where that's okay, but there will plenty of articles which
> are excellent in the current form, but become worse-than-trivial if
> reduced to one-paragraph stubs.

A well-formed English Wikipedia article - and evidently a German
Wikipedia one too - should have a lead summary section that
constitutes an informative short article in itself, and be written as
an inverted pyramid. The first sentence should be informative and
standalone, the first paragraph should be informative and standalone,
the intro as a unit should be informative and standalone. See
[[:en:WP:LEAD]].

So it's not as good as having the whole thing right there, but it
supplies more information than none for someone who wants the
ten-second summary. A book of those could be quite useful.

And it comes with a free website you can go to for expanded versions
once you know you want one ;-)

- d.

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geo.plrd at yahoo

Apr 23, 2008, 10:03 AM

Post #32 of 61 (4193 views)
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Re: Bertelsmann publishes "Wikipedia Encyclopedia in One Volume" [In reply to]

Imagine being able to ship this into poor countries!

----- Original Message ----
From: Ziko van Dijk <zvandijk [at] googlemail>
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l [at] lists>
Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2008 6:02:23 AM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Bertelsmann publishes "Wikipedia Encyclopedia in One Volume"

On WDR Teletext a popular computer journalist, J�rg Schieb, blogged about
the Bertelsmann edition. He was sceptical that the printed edition will
provide new target groups to Wikipedia, because Wikipedia is online for
free, always up to date and so on.
Because of the Digital Divide, I do believe that the printed edition can
reach some people who hardly ever use the net, although they are connected.
Maybe those people get interested in the online Wikipedia having seen the
printed edition.
Actually, the printed edition already had an important effect on Wikipedia's
image: the journalists stress out how useful the internet encyclopaedia is
compared to a printed book...
Ziko

2008/4/23 Nathan <nawrich [at] gmail>:

>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/business/media/23wiki.html?ref=technology
>
> Article today by Noam Cohen in the NY Times.
>
> Nathan
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--
Ziko van Dijk
Roomberg 30
NL-7064 BN Silvolde
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dgerard at gmail

Apr 23, 2008, 10:04 AM

Post #33 of 61 (4207 views)
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Re: Bertelsmann publishes "Wikipedia Encyclopedia in One Volume" [In reply to]

On 23/04/2008, Mathias Schindler <mathias.schindler [at] gmail> wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 6:36 PM, Andre Engels <andreengels [at] gmail> wrote:

> > I guess for Bertelsmann and for Wikipedia such a book would be ok, but
> > a reader would be more served with one volume out of a series of
> > books, each of them containing something like 1000 or 2000 complete
> > Wikipedia articles on some broad subject.

> This is not an XOR decision. Anyone can come up with a practical
> solution how to fill content originating in Wikipedia into dead trees.
> And I would like to hear them all :)

The SOS Children DVD takes a few thousand en:wp articles at greater
length. The press release estimated it as equivalent to 15 volumes.

- d.

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dgerard at gmail

Apr 23, 2008, 10:07 AM

Post #34 of 61 (4191 views)
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Re: Bertelsmann publishes "Wikipedia Encyclopedia in One Volume" [In reply to]

On 23/04/2008, Geoffrey Plourde <geo.plrd [at] yahoo> wrote:

> Imagine being able to ship this into poor countries!

Indeed :-) As I noted on wikien-l, I think doing this for en:wp as
well would be entirely feasible. We'll see if a publisher is
interested.

- d.

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tim at tim-landscheidt

Apr 23, 2008, 10:29 AM

Post #35 of 61 (4193 views)
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Re: Bertelsmann publishes "Wikipedia Encyclopedia in One Volume" [In reply to]

"Andre Engels" <andreengels [at] gmail> wrote:

> One thing that I haven't seen mentioned yet in this thread is that by
> taking only the introductions (which is indeed necessary to get
> anything close to 50,000 articles into 1000 pages), Bertelsmann in my
> feeling is removing most of the usefulness from Wikipedia. There will
> be articles where that's okay, but there will plenty of articles which
> are excellent in the current form, but become worse-than-trivial if
> reduced to one-paragraph stubs.

> I guess for Bertelsmann and for Wikipedia such a book would be ok, but
> a reader would be more served with one volume out of a series of
> books, each of them containing something like 1000 or 2000 complete
> Wikipedia articles on some broad subject.

If enough (potential) readers share your view, Bertelsmann
will incur a loss and perhaps some of their competitors will
take the opportunity.

The nice part of this deal is that unless you are a
stockholder of Bertelsmann you do not have to worry about
any of this.

Tim

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kwadhwa at wikimedia

Apr 23, 2008, 10:42 AM

Post #36 of 61 (4189 views)
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Re: Bertelsmann publishes "Wikipedia Encyclopedia in One Volume" [In reply to]

I think that there are so many different ways to tackle the idea
of a printed version of Wikipedia and this way may or may not be
the best way...and there is only so much market research you can
do...especially when you are doing something that is outside the
standard publishing model. I think the German chapter did a lot
of investigation into the process and options, and sometimes we
have to just see how this goes and learn from it. It is so difficult
to gauge how content deals turn out (even for a reference book such
as this) so if your primary measure of "success" is the number
of units sold...then we will just have to wait and see. But with
this project in particular, there are several things we are trying
to accomplish so in some sense, several "successes" have already
been achieved. I am sure that even if this is a "success" as
defined by traditional publishing industry metrics, and if we
continue to do other deals like this, we will always try to improve
the next project and some of these other ideas may be tried as well.

--Kul

Tim Landscheidt wrote:
> "Andre Engels" <andreengels [at] gmail> wrote:
>
>> One thing that I haven't seen mentioned yet in this thread is that by
>> taking only the introductions (which is indeed necessary to get
>> anything close to 50,000 articles into 1000 pages), Bertelsmann in my
>> feeling is removing most of the usefulness from Wikipedia. There will
>> be articles where that's okay, but there will plenty of articles which
>> are excellent in the current form, but become worse-than-trivial if
>> reduced to one-paragraph stubs.
>
>> I guess for Bertelsmann and for Wikipedia such a book would be ok, but
>> a reader would be more served with one volume out of a series of
>> books, each of them containing something like 1000 or 2000 complete
>> Wikipedia articles on some broad subject.
>
> If enough (potential) readers share your view, Bertelsmann
> will incur a loss and perhaps some of their competitors will
> take the opportunity.
>
> The nice part of this deal is that unless you are a
> stockholder of Bertelsmann you do not have to worry about
> any of this.
>
> Tim
>
> _______________________________________________
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teun.spaans at gmail

Apr 23, 2008, 12:08 PM

Post #37 of 61 (4191 views)
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Re: Bertelsmann publishes "Wikipedia Encyclopedia in One Volume" [In reply to]

According to the NYT interview, this book will center around popular issues
and B. sees it as a kind of yearbook.

Though I only occasionallly wrote on .de, i cannot tell if the german
language version has the same abundance for telly, sport and movies related
subjects as some other large wikis. If so, wikipedia may be a good choice
for them. If this succeeds, they may turn to more specilized subjects,
encyclopedias for soccer, golf, other sports, mammals, geography and such
may well come up somewhere in the future.

On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 6:36 PM, Andre Engels <andreengels [at] gmail> wrote:

> One thing that I haven't seen mentioned yet in this thread is that by
> taking only the introductions (which is indeed necessary to get
> anything close to 50,000 articles into 1000 pages), Bertelsmann in my
> feeling is removing most of the usefulness from Wikipedia. There will
> be articles where that's okay, but there will plenty of articles which
> are excellent in the current form, but become worse-than-trivial if
> reduced to one-paragraph stubs.
>
> I guess for Bertelsmann and for Wikipedia such a book would be ok, but
> a reader would be more served with one volume out of a series of
> books, each of them containing something like 1000 or 2000 complete
> Wikipedia articles on some broad subject.
>
>
> --
> Andre Engels, andreengels [at] gmail
> ICQ: 6260644 -- Skype: a_engels
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l [at] lists
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
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mary_murrell at yahoo

Apr 23, 2008, 2:31 PM

Post #38 of 61 (4175 views)
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Re: Bertelsmann publishes "Wikipedia Encyclopedia in One Volume" [In reply to]

Imagine being able to ship this into poor countries FOR FREE.

David Gerard <dgerard [at] gmail> wrote: On 23/04/2008, Geoffrey Plourde wrote:

> Imagine being able to ship this into poor countries!

Indeed :-) As I noted on wikien-l, I think doing this for en:wp as
well would be entirely feasible. We'll see if a publisher is
interested.

- d.

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tim at tim-landscheidt

Apr 23, 2008, 2:39 PM

Post #39 of 61 (4204 views)
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Re: Bertelsmann publishes "Wikipedia Encyclopedia in One Volume" [In reply to]

Mary Murrell <mary_murrell [at] yahoo> wrote:

> Imagine being able to ship this into poor countries FOR FREE.
> [...]

You already *are*. Just take the content, print some books
and ship them. No royalties to pay at all!

Tim

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gordon.joly at pobox

Apr 23, 2008, 2:42 PM

Post #40 of 61 (4188 views)
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Re: Bertelsmann publishes "Wikipedia Encyclopedia in One Volume" [In reply to]

At 12:04 +0100 23/4/08, Andrew Gray wrote:
>2008/4/23 David Gerard <dgerard [at] gmail>:
>> On 23/04/2008, Mary Murrell <mary_murrell [at] yahoo> wrote:
>>
>> > 1. Free as in $19.95-a-pop beer, yeah.
>>
>> Not bad for a 1000-page lump of dead tree, I'd say.
>
>Yeah. 20 EUR is, what, fifteen quid? That's pretty cheap for a
>hardbound general reference work, especially one run off with decent
>print standards (ie, colour throughout)
>
>Britannica Concise is �50 for 2k pp.; DK's illustrated childrens'
>encyclopedia is �30 for 800pp; some random A-Z Reference Book is �25
>for 1400pp; Hutchinson Encyclopedia is �40 for 1000pp.; Penguin
>Concise Encyclopedia is �19 for 1000pp (but is a rather cheap-looking
>paperback, probably not much in the way of colour)
>
>Assuming the German one-volume quick-reference market is about the
>same as ours, it's priced well.
>
>--
>- Andrew Gray
> andrew.gray [at] dunelm
>
>_______

And consider these two copyright expired texts:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hung-Lou-Meng-Dream-Chamber/dp/1406512605/r

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hung-Meng-Dream-Chamber-Book/dp/1406512613/

A snip at 36 quid for two volumes?

The text is freely available at Project Gutenberg:

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/9603

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/9604

or

http://tinyurl.com/659o9r

Gordo

--
"Think Feynman"/////////
http://pobox.com/~gordo/
gordon.joly [at] pobox///

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wikimail at inbox

Apr 23, 2008, 3:11 PM

Post #41 of 61 (4188 views)
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Re: Bertelsmann publishes "Wikipedia Encyclopedia in One Volume" [In reply to]

On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 10:42 AM, Mike Godwin <mgodwin [at] wikimedia> wrote:
> David is absolutely right about this. Historically, we (by "we" I mean
> the Foundation and the community both) have treated the Wikimedia
> trademarks -- including the Wikipedia puzzle globe and the logotype
> and the commercial use of the word "Wikipedia" -- as if they were of
> little commercial value, since the content by itself is freely
> licensed and of course always will remain free. In the marketplace,
> however, the trademarks turn out to be much more valuable. Beginning
> late last year we have been taking steps to increase the extent to
> which the trademark can be used commercially to bring money in to
> subsidize our operations and the projects generally.
>
> (I often use the example of Red Hat Linux when I explain this to folks.)
>
Is this just a restriction on advertising material, or do you intend
to try to disallow verbatim copying which keeps the identical title
and cover pages?

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oldakquill at gmail

Apr 23, 2008, 3:12 PM

Post #42 of 61 (4191 views)
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Re: Bertelsmann publishes "Wikipedia Encyclopedia in One Volume" [In reply to]

2008/4/23 teun spaans <teun.spaans [at] gmail>:
> According to the NYT interview, this book will center around popular issues
> and B. sees it as a kind of yearbook.
>
> Though I only occasionallly wrote on .de, i cannot tell if the german
> language version has the same abundance for telly, sport and movies related
> subjects as some other large wikis. If so, wikipedia may be a good choice
> for them. If this succeeds, they may turn to more specilized subjects,
> encyclopedias for soccer, golf, other sports, mammals, geography and such
> may well come up somewhere in the future.

I think even more specialised selections of articles may be a good
place to look. Generally, I would imagine, the more specialised a
subject, the less competition there is in terms of reference works for
that subject.

Specialised areas which might generate a fair amount of demand are
guides to fictional worlds. Obviously, there is a lot of interest
associated with these, and there may be a fair amount of competition
in terms of reference works. en.Wikipedia has a good number of
articles about fictional worlds associated with fantasy (Harry Potter,
Lord of the Rings, Foundation, Dune). Contributors tend to be very
interested in these areas and their coverage tends to be very good
(where coverage hasn't been deleted). If a guide to say... Lord of the
Rings, or (dare I mention) Pokemon, were compiled from Wikipedia
content and published and sold in book shops, a fair bit of funding
could be generated for the Wikimedia Foundation.

Other specialised areas we might look at are collectors areas (stamps,
coins), enthusiast areas (airplanes, ships, cars), gardening...

If there were the drive to compile articles into books and copyedit
them, would there be any effective way to print, bind and put them in
bookshops to be sold?

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill [at] gmail)

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dgerard at gmail

Apr 23, 2008, 3:31 PM

Post #43 of 61 (4192 views)
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Re: Bertelsmann publishes "Wikipedia Encyclopedia in One Volume" [In reply to]

2008/4/23 Oldak Quill <oldakquill [at] gmail>:

> Specialised areas which might generate a fair amount of demand are
> guides to fictional worlds. Obviously, there is a lot of interest
> associated with these, and there may be a fair amount of competition
> in terms of reference works. en.Wikipedia has a good number of
> articles about fictional worlds associated with fantasy (Harry Potter,
> Lord of the Rings, Foundation, Dune). Contributors tend to be very
> interested in these areas and their coverage tends to be very good
> (where coverage hasn't been deleted). If a guide to say... Lord of the
> Rings, or (dare I mention) Pokemon, were compiled from Wikipedia
> content and published and sold in book shops, a fair bit of funding
> could be generated for the Wikimedia Foundation.

Let's see how the Rowling case resolves first!

- d.

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wikimail at inbox

Apr 23, 2008, 3:57 PM

Post #44 of 61 (4192 views)
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Re: Bertelsmann publishes "Wikipedia Encyclopedia in One Volume" [In reply to]

On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 6:12 PM, Oldak Quill <oldakquill [at] gmail> wrote:
> Specialised areas which might generate a fair amount of demand are
> guides to fictional worlds. Obviously, there is a lot of interest
> associated with these, and there may be a fair amount of competition
> in terms of reference works. en.Wikipedia has a good number of
> articles about fictional worlds associated with fantasy (Harry Potter,
> Lord of the Rings, Foundation, Dune). Contributors tend to be very
> interested in these areas and their coverage tends to be very good
> (where coverage hasn't been deleted). If a guide to say... Lord of the
> Rings, or (dare I mention) Pokemon, were compiled from Wikipedia
> content and published and sold in book shops, a fair bit of funding
> could be generated for the Wikimedia Foundation.
>
Is there any precedent for whether or not that'd be legal, though?
[[Castle Rock Entertainment, Inc. v. Carol Publishing Group]] comes to
mind, though an encyclopedia has more potential for transformative use
than a trivia book. No one's going to sue the WMF over something like
that, of course, and even if they did the non-commercial aspect would
be a strong factor in its favor, but adding a commercial factor and
putting it all in print might push it from fair use into copyright
infringement.

Ah, while posting this I see David Gerard has pointed out a more
recent and appropriate case: [[J.K. Rowling v. RDR Books|Legal
disputes over Harry Potter]]

> Other specialised areas we might look at are collectors areas (stamps,
> coins), enthusiast areas (airplanes, ships, cars), gardening...
>
Not sure how many of those are already started at Wikibooks, but one I
thought of before is apparently already started at
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Field_Guide/Birds_-_Eastern_US_and_Canada

(http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Gardening,
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/World_Stamp_Catalogue, are already
started)

> If there were the drive to compile articles into books and copyedit
> them, would there be any effective way to print, bind and put them in
> bookshops to be sold?
>
I'm skeptical. The kind of books you're talking about (airplanes,
ships, cars, gardening, field guides) are typically the ones you find
in the bargain section of the bookstore for prices small publishers
can't really compete with. And for the even more frugal you can
usually find that kind of content at the thrift store at prices which
are less than the value of the paper it's printed on (if the paper
were blank the price would probably be higher). That's probably why
Bertelsmann is going for the current event/yearbook angle. Wikipedia
does tend to produce decent content in that area before it makes it to
the bargain section.

Now, this skepticism is based on my US-centric view of things. I'd
suspect it's similar in any well-populated first world country,
though.

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brianna.laugher at gmail

Apr 23, 2008, 5:06 PM

Post #45 of 61 (4186 views)
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Re: Bertelsmann publishes "Wikipedia Encyclopedia in One Volume" [In reply to]

On 24/04/2008, Mary Murrell <mary_murrell [at] yahoo> wrote:
> I'd like to see a book publishing contract that is committed to GFDL. Does anyone have one they could share?

Yep, I know one: The Django Book.
<http://www.djangobook.com/>
<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1590597257?ie=UTF8&tag=jacobianorg-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1590597257>

regards,
Brianna

--
They've just been waiting in a mountain for the right moment:
http://modernthings.org/

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geo.plrd at yahoo

Apr 23, 2008, 9:23 PM

Post #46 of 61 (4175 views)
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Re: Bertelsmann publishes "Wikipedia Encyclopedia in One Volume" [In reply to]

Kudos to whoever negotiated this! Absolutely brilliant plan.

----- Original Message ----
From: David Gerard <dgerard [at] gmail>
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l [at] lists>
Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2008 10:07:17 AM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Bertelsmann publishes "Wikipedia Encyclopedia in One Volume"

On 23/04/2008, Geoffrey Plourde <geo.plrd [at] yahoo> wrote:

> Imagine being able to ship this into poor countries!

Indeed :-) As I noted on wikien-l, I think doing this for en:wp as
well would be entirely feasible. We'll see if a publisher is
interested.

- d.

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teun.spaans at gmail

Apr 23, 2008, 10:39 PM

Post #47 of 61 (4187 views)
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Re: Bertelsmann publishes "Wikipedia Encyclopedia in One Volume" [In reply to]

True.

There is one thing we have to be carefull with, and which is a good
reason to leave these topics to commercial publishing houses: most of
the illustrations we have on these topics are incorporated as "fair
use".

And i actually think we dont have much stuff on gardening, and i feel
some doubt on the qualities of the stuff we have on plants, but
perhaps that is because as a contributor i see what is wrong with it.

On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 12:12 AM, Oldak Quill <oldakquill [at] gmail> wrote:
> 2008/4/23 teun spaans <teun.spaans [at] gmail>:
>
> > According to the NYT interview, this book will center around popular issues
> > and B. sees it as a kind of yearbook.
> >
> > Though I only occasionallly wrote on .de, i cannot tell if the german
> > language version has the same abundance for telly, sport and movies related
> > subjects as some other large wikis. If so, wikipedia may be a good choice
> > for them. If this succeeds, they may turn to more specilized subjects,
> > encyclopedias for soccer, golf, other sports, mammals, geography and such
> > may well come up somewhere in the future.
>
> I think even more specialised selections of articles may be a good
> place to look. Generally, I would imagine, the more specialised a
> subject, the less competition there is in terms of reference works for
> that subject.
>
> Specialised areas which might generate a fair amount of demand are
> guides to fictional worlds. Obviously, there is a lot of interest
> associated with these, and there may be a fair amount of competition
> in terms of reference works. en.Wikipedia has a good number of
> articles about fictional worlds associated with fantasy (Harry Potter,
> Lord of the Rings, Foundation, Dune). Contributors tend to be very
> interested in these areas and their coverage tends to be very good
> (where coverage hasn't been deleted). If a guide to say... Lord of the
> Rings, or (dare I mention) Pokemon, were compiled from Wikipedia
> content and published and sold in book shops, a fair bit of funding
> could be generated for the Wikimedia Foundation.
>
> Other specialised areas we might look at are collectors areas (stamps,
> coins), enthusiast areas (airplanes, ships, cars), gardening...
>
> If there were the drive to compile articles into books and copyedit
> them, would there be any effective way to print, bind and put them in
> bookshops to be sold?
>
> --
> Oldak Quill (oldakquill [at] gmail)
>
>
>
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wiki.ral315 at gmail

Apr 24, 2008, 12:42 AM

Post #48 of 61 (4197 views)
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Re: Bertelsmann publishes "Wikipedia Encyclopedia in One Volume" [In reply to]

On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 1:39 AM, teun spaans <teun.spaans [at] gmail> wrote:

> True.
>
> There is one thing we have to be carefull with, and which is a good
> reason to leave these topics to commercial publishing houses: most of
> the illustrations we have on these topics are incorporated as "fair
> use".
>
> And i actually think we dont have much stuff on gardening, and i feel
> some doubt on the qualities of the stuff we have on plants, but
> perhaps that is because as a contributor i see what is wrong with it.
>

I'm not sure whether the German Wikipedia has any fair-use images, but I'm
sure we could easily ensure that, on an English version, that the fair-use
images were excluded.

--
[[User:Ral315]]
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dgerard at gmail

Apr 24, 2008, 2:04 AM

Post #49 of 61 (4185 views)
Permalink

Re: Bertelsmann publishes "Wikipedia Encyclopedia in One Volume" [In reply to]

On 24/04/2008, Ryan <wiki.ral315 [at] gmail> wrote:

> I'm not sure whether the German Wikipedia has any fair-use images,

It doesn't.

> but I'm
> sure we could easily ensure that, on an English version, that the fair-use
> images were excluded.

Yep, very easily. A commercial paper publisher would also want to
check each image's licensing was good themselves, of course.

- d.

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wikimail at inbox

Apr 24, 2008, 4:26 AM

Post #50 of 61 (4162 views)
Permalink

Re: Bertelsmann publishes "Wikipedia Encyclopedia in One Volume" [In reply to]

On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 3:42 AM, Ryan <wiki.ral315 [at] gmail> wrote:
> I'm not sure whether the German Wikipedia has any fair-use images, but I'm
> sure we could easily ensure that, on an English version, that the fair-use
> images were excluded.
>
Alternatively, you could subvert the whole concept of free content
completely and get special permission to use those images. Then you
cut down on competition as well.

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