The purpose of the following document is to provide a summary of the type of collaboration that NASA can achieve with Wikipedia and the benefits that can be expected for both parties.

When completed, the document/proposal/outline will be posted to OpenNASA under "Collaboration" to be voted upon.

It should be noted that this proposal is somewhat similar to the NASApedia idea.

Document

Summary

I would like to propose a collaboration between NASA and various Wikimedia projects including: Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wiksource, Wikiversity, Wikibooks and the Commons. Through this collaboration, NASA would be given the opportunity to improve/create relevant articles, make its media more available, and its documentation more accessible.

Background

This collaboration request stems from the fact that there are numerous articles that could be easily improved by people with relevant knowledge, and the fact that NASA has produced many quality "works" (graphics, documents, etc) which are under Public Domain.

It should be noted that NASA is currently actively participating in other Web 2.0 projects such as Youtube, Flickr, Scribd, and Internet Archive, and so it is believed that NASA would be willing to contribute/collaborate in Wikimedia projects.

Proposal

Please expand

For new articles, there would be something similar to article incubator,but for NASA articles. NASA could better maintain/improve its wikipedia articles. NASA could provide Q/A's on wikipedia talk pages. NASA is more than welcome to correct other articles=D.

NASA could do mass imports of its images to the commons.

Benefits

How would NASA benefit?

NASA related content would be greatly improved and result in a greater understanding by the general populace as to what NASA has done and what it is they plan to do. NASA's content would be made more accessible, understandable, and useful to the general public.

In addition, NASA would receive the positive publicity of collaborating in an open and free Web 2.0 project which is used by millions of people around the world on a daily basis.

How would Wikimedia benefit?

There are several Wikimedia projects that would see immediate benefits from a collaboration with NASA.

Wikipedia

There are currently tens of thousands articles either regarding NASA or relating to NASA in some way. Many of these articles are currently underdeveloped because the technical and general knowledge needed to expand them isn't available. NASA could provide the expertise needed to expand such articles.

Wiktionary

NASA currently writes up hundreds of pages of definitions, acronyms, and synonyms for each of its missions. Porting these works to Wiktionary would greatly improve their current library of 1.5 million words.

Wikisource

NASA has created tens of thousands of pages of documenation, fact sheets, and pamphlets for its missions. Adding these to Wikisource would greatly expand the number of documents available.

Commons

NASA has millions of pieces of multimedia including pictures, videos, audio, animations, and models, many of which are of higher quality than what is currently available at the commons.

Closing

As NASA's motto states: "For the Benefit of All", such a collaboration would provide a great benefit to a number of people as well as furthering the goals of the Wikimedia foundation as stated by their mission statement "The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally."