Wikipedia:WikiProject Robotics/Outreach

The outreach department of WikiProject Robotics is a centralized work area for project recruitment and member interaction efforts. The new programs currently underway are a monthly project newsletter and a welcoming message for new members of the project; further ideas are always welcome, of course!

An open letter to our new members

No one person speaks for Wikipedia, but there is general agreement that robotics is a current "target". That means...if you have something you want to say to the world about robots, it would be a great idea to join the conversation now by creating an account if you don't have one, and adding your name to our Participants page. If you want help with doing that or anything else, you can click on the name of any participant on that page to go to the userpage, and then click "email this user" at the lower left of your screen. If English is not your native language, you might prefer to join us at the Simple English Wikipedia.

The world is full of people who used to be considered experts of one kind or another, whose own kids get their answers from Wikipedia now instead. If you want to be one of the people responsible for "peer reviews" of robotics articles, you don't have to be a genius and you don't need any track record at Wikipedia, you just have to sign up. Be aware that the relationships that are forged at the beginning of every Wikiproject tend to dominate articles in that project going forward, so please don't wait.

If you want to meet the most accomplished, most interesting, and nicest people involved in robotics in the world, Wikipedia is the place to do it. Every day, just by responding to people who have edited robotics articles, I wind up chatting with many people who work at the top robotics companies and teach at the top schools. And...my skills aren't that great. If you're friendly, you're willing to learn a little bit about what to do on Wikipedia, and you have something helpful to offer, you will have no trouble making friends.

There's one thing that often happens at the beginning of a Wikiproject that helps develop the subject, and it seems to be happening right now for robotics. Everyone understands that, just because something gets written up in a local paper, that doesn't make it "encyclopedic". But after discussions with admins, we can all be optimistic that they will be going easy on us over the next couple of months as we create new articles. The combination of write-ups in newspapers and online, combined with your help patrolling and commenting on new robotics articles, will probably be enough to ensure a high quality of articles. Obviously it's better if a hundred newspapers have articles giving support to that robotics article that you'd love to write, but even if what you want to write about is something new in robotics, don't let that stop you. Everything in robotics is new. Just be careful about one thing: don't edit or create an article that you have a personal stake in: your robot, your school, your grandfather's reputation. We work here as a community, objectively reviewing what other people have to say. None of us is allowed to promote our own "stuff".

There are many experienced editors involved in this project, and we will be happy to answer any questions you have and help you write your articles. And it's worth the trouble: Wikipedia is the top .org site in the world by number of hits, and in terms of "credibility" and "goodwill", there's no other site even close.

Newsletter

This newsletter was created in January 2008 and is based on the WikiProject Universities newsletter. Each issue will be published twice a month summarizing the happenings in the past two weeks. Feel free to help with the process!

Delivery options

By default, we will provide a link to the current issue of the newsletter on your talk page when it comes out. If you would prefer, you may choose to have the contents delivered to you directly (in other words, to have the full newsletter added to your talk page), or to not receive the newsletter in any form.

If you are not a member of the project but would like a copy of the newsletter, for whatever reason, you may add you name here as well.

Instructions

Link-only delivery

{{subst:Wikipedia:WikiProject Robotics/Outreach/Newsletter link|{{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}}} —~~~~

Full content delivery

{{subst:Wikipedia:WikiProject Robotics/Outreach/Newsletter {{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}}} —~~~~

Inviting new members

To invite members who actively contribute to robotics articles (note: please do not spam), paste: {{subst:Invite User WikiProject Robotics}} along with your signature.

Sample Output

Invite to WP:ROBO

NASA Spirit Rover Model

As a current or past contributor to a related article, I thought I'd let you know about WikiProject Robotics, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of Robotics. If you would like to participate, you can visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks and related articles. Thanks!

Welcoming new members

To welcome new members using this message, paste: {{subst:Wikipedia:WikiProject Robotics/Outreach/Welcome|—~~~~}}

Hi, and welcome to WikiProject Robotics! Our goals are to standardize the structure and content of all Robotics articles, improve Wikipedia's coverage of these articles (hopefully propelling them to featured article status), and serve as the central resource for all discussions and information related to Robotics on Wikipedia.

A few features that you might find helpful:

• Our navigation box points to most of the useful pages within the project.
• Most important discussions take place on the project's main discussion page; it is highly recommended that you watchlist it.
• The project has a few expanding departments, which handle article quality assessment, member recruitment and project awareness and article improvement collaborations.

If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask one of the project participants or post a question on the talk page. We'll be happy to help you. Again, welcome! We look forward to seeing you around!

Project advertisements

Paste [[Image:Wikiprojectrobotics.png]] to use this banner

Our ad is now in the Wikipedia Ads circulation. Help promote WikiProject Robotics by displaying this image on your userpage, or to place Wikipedia Ads to your user page, you may add {{Wikipedia ads}}.

• Display only certain ads: Here's the script to only display certain ads (so you can have people see our Robotics ad more often (or just only display this ad only). Note: WikiProject:Robotics Ad is #116.

{{Wikipedia ads|ad={{#switch:{{#expr:{{NUMBEROFEDITS:R}} mod 12}} <!-- mod 12 is the number of ads total-->
|0=24  <!--Change the the ad number of your choice here.  Remember, -->
|1=45  <!--this is an array, so the count starts with 0, and ends   -->
|2=73  <!--with one number lower than the total number of ads.  :-) -->
|3=77 |4=86 |5=94 |6=104 |7=106 |8=116 |9=116 |10=116 |11=116}}}}