Yellowikis is an open access business directory......Edit

We aim to provide up-to-date, open, accurate, honest but quite basic business information to everyone on the internet.

One of our main aims is to be a global resource. Small companies - particularly those in developing countries don't find it easy to set up their own web pages and get them ranked by Google and the other search engines. We hope that a simple entry in Yellowikis will help level the playing field.

There are very few rules about adding information. We launched the service on January 12 2005 - we are open to ideas and for the time being we will let a certain amount of anarchy rule. But we will be keeping a careful eye on our baby and want to encourage it to grow and develop into an information resource as important as Wikipedia itself. With your help and support we will slowly grow a Yellowiki community of users that we hope will nurture and love it as much as we do!

WikipediaEdit

Wikipedia is our inspiration and our spiritual parent. Everything we do should be respectful of Wikipedia and we hope that one day Yellowikis will be able to give financial support to the Wikimedia Foundation.

Any organisation big enough to have an article in Wikipedia should also be in Yellowikis. Sometimes you can help Yellowikis by copying articles from Wikipedia to here, if it happens that those articles contain business directory listing information. This is most commonly the case for articles that don't actually belong on Wikipedia, since Wikipedia does not aim to be a business directory, and that have been placed there by mistake, or as advertising.

Since Wikipedia does not aim to be a business directory, most of its articles on businesses (particularly its long-established articles) are not worth copying to Yellowikis, since they will contain no business directory listing information that can then be turned into a Yellowikis article. Furthermore, since Wikipedia does not aim to be a business directory, Wikipedia articles on businesses do not link to business directory listings (either those on Yellowikis or elsewhere). Therefore, please don't add links from Wikipedia articles to Yellowikis articles. Linking from Yellowikis articles to Wikipedia is fine, however.

Frustrations, Questions, DoubtsEdit

Tell us what you need from us - together we will make it happen.

• Anti spambot on the email ? suggestion is to add email, all emails will be spammed ? Miono 10:30, 28 November 2006 (GMT)

Suggestion - How about a 'Stub of the Day' that is featured on the homepage that everyone can help to complete?? Markie

TO DO LIST Edit

There is a lot to do:

• Plans for the monthly focus - based around events in the news (i.e. Flower shops for Valentines day, tennis clubs around the time of Wimbledon, Toy shops at Christmas.;) See the project at Yellowikis:Calendar.
• Need different search criteria options high up on the homepage: Company (by name), company (by trade), Company (by location) etc Best to emulate something like yell.com (a yellow page directory that'll hate this suggestion!)
• Create pages of industry codes
• Country codes? from UN and/or telephone prefix?
• Decide on additional details (languages spoken? company history? opening hours?)
• How do we work with subsidiary company listings, products, brands and branches?
• Recruitment of sysops? how many do we need?
• Communications - at what point do we make a formal anouncement of our launch? when? how many companies do we need to reach critical mass?
• Commercial policy? are we on the right licence? do we allow companies to freeze their pages?
• Cleanup of transwikified articles: See Category:Transwikied from Wikipedia and Yellowikis:Transwiki log.
• Add reference pages which are relevant to a business listing such pages usually appear in the front or back of printed telephone/business directories and diaries. Information that helps you contact businesses is particulary useful.
  • List of country calling codes
  • Time zones
• Structure existing word based categories such as 'web design' or 'advertising' using the Open Directory Project categories ODP Business category.
• clean up to do list into defined projects (see below).

ProjectsEdit

• Project:FTSE 100 - a project to add the category FTSE 100 to all FTSE 100 companies.
• Project:Registered charities - a project to link charities to online registers where available - helps to ensure that only genuine charities are listed.
• Project:Industry codes - a project to categorise businesses using valid SIC and NAICS codes.

See alsoEdit

Yellowikis:to do

Categories Edit

Please help ensure that the following categorisation system is developed and used:

Businesses by type - Businesses by location - Businesses by industry

The top level category is Global Business Listings.

HistoryEdit

Yellowikis opened 13 january 2005, see first edit at 10:33.