WikiProject YouTube: WikiProject YouTube is a new project on both English and Simple English Wikipedia.
YouTube may be more than 12 years old, but as a WikiProject, it’s still a newbie on the English and Simple English Wikipedia. Jamesjpk talked to the Signpost about how he got started in this new project, issues that they face and told us a little about the Simple English version!
WikiProject YouTube was first proposed by DerryAdama in April of 2015.[1] The project was started up nearly a year later in 2016.[2] One of the active users is Jamesjpk who also works on the Simple English YouTube project.[3] Jamesjpk became involved with the English Wikiproject while working on a draft for a YouTuber, Aphmau. While working on the project he went looking for projects to place on the talk page. James found the proposed, but abandoned project and began working on it. He also created the Simple English project, although with Simple English Wikipedia, articles cannot be tagged with WikiProjects on the talk page, as all WikiProjects are still unofficial.
Working with YouTube articles presents a unique challenge. Even though it’s a huge video platform in which 5 billion videos are watched every day through YouTube,[4] it can be difficult to show notability for individual YouTubers. Jamesjpk has estimated that 75% of all articles started about YouTube personalities have been deleted from Wikipedia. Editors writing these bios often fail to adequately source the bios with independent, reliable sources. Jamesjpk and other members of WikiProject YouTube want to see articles with better sourcing, less detail about YouTuber’s personal lives and a greater emphasis on their work as videographers or personalities online. He emphasizes to writers to “Explain why the YouTuber is notable!” The fact that a YouTuber might be reaching a large audience as shown by their subscriber numbers, downloads or other milestones is difficult to source outside of YouTube itself also makes it difficult to write about personalities on Wikipedia.
Another challenge is writing neutrally about controversial YouTubers and getting access to media for illustration purposes. Jamesjpk says that most YouTubers won’t answer inquiries for picture rights and most YouTube videos are licensed under the YouTube Standard License, or “all rights reserved makes it difficult to obtain media for Wikimedia Commons. “For the time being,” he says, “I’m not sure how our group would address this issue, as it is a hard one to crack.”
Discuss this story
I have not been particularly active on articles related to online video (which would probably be a better name for such a WikiProject imo), primarily because there are no reliable sources that focus specifically on the subject. I really wish there were a good number of sources to work with in this field. The project looks good, anyway, and I think I'm going to follow it :) ~Mable (chat) 08:06, 6 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I have learnt about the evolution of WikiProject YouTube in the English Wikipedia. Well thanks for writing articles like these that would inspire the viewers including me. Well I accept the fact that it is very difficult to find and access to references and other sources except the YouTube. Abishe (talk) 09:11, 6 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Public Relations / Advertising for YouTube
Why is a single brand featured as a project on Wikipedia and in The Signpost? How much does Google pay (or contributes in other forms) for it? It is simple advertising for Google and YouTube. And that is not allowed on Wikipedia. What about other video platforms? Do you remember our rules? If not - read this: WP:NOTADVERTISING. with best wishes from VINCENZO1492 09:16, 7 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]