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9/11 coverage, Wikimedia hypothetically rebranded and Wikipedia golf 2.0

9/11 anniversary casts its shadow on the wiki

I didn’t necessarily expect to feel vivid, spontaneous emotions about the 9/11 attacks on this 10th anniversary. I suspected that too much time had passed, that 10 more years in journalism had only given me that much more cynical, objective distance.

But of all things it was a simple Wikipedia timeline of 9/11 that got to me. It turned out to be rather effective at dredging up one of the scariest feelings from that horrible day a decade ago: the enormous, unprecedented scale of the attacks combined with too little information from one minute to the next to be able to guess how much bigger the disaster might get.

I literally felt my heart thud-a-thump faster and faster in my chest as I read down the Wikipedia page.

— Kyle Munson, Des Moines Register

On the tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, Noam Cohen of The New York Times explores the mentality and perspectives behind Wikipedia's portrayal of the topic, and specifically the concerted effort to omit mention of the conspiracy theories that appear only in the fringes of the international media portrayal of the attacks. In particular, Cohen, who often writes about Wikipedia, highlighted the distinct lack of links between the main article describing the attacks and the article on the conspiracy theories that dispute the widely accepted version of events. Indeed, as Cohen writes, "there is no description of the celebrities who have endorsed the view; no mention of poll results on the subject that show some support among the public; no account, even, of the attraction of conspiracy theories in a time of crisis".

As Cohen admits, not everyone is happy with the status quo, which is distantly removed from the consensus reached on other articles such as that describing the Rorschach test. He quotes User:Arthur Rubin, who argues that although those who believe the conspiracy theories are pushing against the consensus, the phenomenon deserves coverage. "Although the theories are fringe," wrote Rubin, "the fact that there are theories is a mainstream phenomenon." In related news, the state of links to a special "Sep11" wiki created in the aftermath of the attacks was discussed on the wikitech-l mailing list. As of time of writing, the domain name sep11.wikimedia.org redirects to the correct target (the Internet Archive) but URLs of the form http://sep11.wikimedia.org/wiki/ do not.

A minimalist makeover

Independent branding agency Moving Brands have unveiled a redesign of the Wikipedia logo, after being invited by Viewpoint Magazine to participate in their Brand Lab initiative. Asked to showcase their skills through a hypothetical redesign of a global brand, Moving Brands selected Wikipedia, based on "an initial assumption that they provided an incredible, free learning resource but were hampered with a weak brand and a ubiquitous but unimpassioned following". The Wikipedia redesign resulted in a minimalist "W"-logo made of five interconnected lines, drawing on the project's five pillars concept (mockups are available on Flickr). The consultancy identified Wikipedia's failure as an inability thus far to "communicate its own story, its offer and its role in capturing, building and disseminating global knowledge".

The analysis prompted discussion on the foundation-l mailing list about Wikimedia as a brand. Whilst there was little support for the specific logo that MovingBrands had designed, there was agreement with their analysis of the image issues Wikimedia faces, including the integration of Wikipedia and its sister projects into a single brand. "Wikipedia has a strong, widely recognizable brand, while the sister projects and the Foundation [itself] don't", wrote Orionist, while Michael Snow suggested that logo redesign, although an attractive move for other companies, was ill-suited to Wikipedia, given that the existing globe logo is well-known. Instead, respondents on the list felt that more obvious links to sister projects were the key to a more integrated Wikimedia family.

Briefly

Arthur Lowe, who, it transpires, did not date Joan Collins

















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