-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 20/06/2010 01:49, Milos Rancic wrote: That information is key. Why people from the teaching establishment don't understand Wikipedia? Why don't they see, for example, that it's one of the best ideas about protecting and sharing information? Why do they judge it so mediocre when they can participate to make it brilliant? Why people in the education doesn't see or understand this? What are their arguments and their inner barriers? Do they have good counter arguments, is it a prejudice, an incompatibility of personality, or ignorance? Where are the explanations? What IS Wikipedia? What are the structures and consequences of this meme, this slogan: "imagine a world where each human being has access to the entire human knowledge"? Where are they theorized, wordized, schematized? Do the members of this mailing list even agree? Do we know what wp is? Where are the wikimedian efforts converging to? What kind of world are they creating? Have we got tendency towards democracy, consensus, participation, sharing, unanimity, respect, liberty, freedom of expression and of choice, listening, dialoguing, or have we not? Why people, values, projects and actions of betterment (to our eyes) of the world are not listened to, trusted, voted, seconded, motioned, consensually applied, critically applauded, desired, rewarded and understood? I think that we need to make people think by themselves about Wikipedia. Make them see the whole big picture. We should collaborate to express this idea, to make it happen in others' mind, so that people can think clearly about it. What it aims to be. Maybe if you don't know and value citizenship (I mean feeling that you're part of your environment and society), freedom, responsibility and other similar concepts, you can't even think about what wp is doing. Maybe they should be permanently discussed, thought and taught with criticism in the wikimedian community. What about making a film about the role of Wikipedia in possible futuristic societies? Or writing anticipation novels? Or interviews of founders and of historical super admins, points of view of Trustees and Board Members, biographies and current interviews of "Jimbo". Debates, interactivity. One of the possible aims should be to show that something is happening with wp, in the same way that back in the "hippie/young/peace and love movement of the 60-70's, "something was happening". I think something is happening right now with Wikipedia and the wikimedian concepts. Not a democracy, not an ochlocracy, it's something new that is a shared governance about a theme or a resource or an interest. Freedom of the knowledge. Of expression. Of access to information. The traditional model about knowledge rewards better the knowledge holders, it seems? Their position, title, revenue, prestige, respect, dignity, power of decision, authority, all come from the commoditization of the knowledge. Maybe we have to think what the new model has to offer to the ancient roles. Also, there is an obvious convergence of visions with TED, at least partially. Wikipedia is an idea worth spreading and a mean of spreading ideas. TED has a lot of success, apparently, to present ideas as an enormously profitable "market", proving that ideas can change the world. That's the power of knowledge and culture. Wikipedia wants to give this power to everybody downright to the single individual. I think some people here, Board Members, Trustees, Admins and other wikimedians should have a try at the 18 minutes speeches. There is something behind the Wikimedia ideas: a future. There is something between most of the TED ideas. Maybe each one deserves a wikipedian page? (yes I'm still answering your letter) I think I already mentioned a technique in other situations to raise awareness and understanding: roleplaying games. Put them in decisional situations with dilemmas about freedom, knowledge, etc. Make it so that each one represents a point of view, one they agree with. What are their political discourse? Are they for or against Wikipedia? Is it a fantastic adventure to better our world or is is just boring. Does knowledge and reflection passionate them or not ? Also, I'm encountering more an more fatalism among educated people. They don't seem to believe that change is possible. Yesterday I just watched "Taking Woodstock", it's an excellent counter-example. Also, is the Serbian chapter complete enough? Do you have at least all the links translated so that you can dive into knowledge, chasing the fleeting tails of elusive concepts, learning about whole new paradigms through dozens of embedded links, glimpsing into what we like, and knowing more about it? Sorry to appear so random, I don't have time to give more structure to my suggestions. I just hope to provoke thoughts.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 20/06/2010 23:23, Keegan Peterzell wrote: Lot of useful information, thank you. I'd like to pinpoint a few arguments from it: Among other things, the "no original research" policy limiting expert implication... I was always bothered by Wikipedia being a repository of traditional knowledge but not novel, challenging, trying ideas. Why not add a tab for each article, called "hypothesis" where original research is tolerated, though all the other wp rules still apply? People who don't want speculation or dubious content would read the main tab, people who want to know possible interpretations and hypothesis would also read the secondary tab. Also, it seems that experts and academicians don't like being challenged by profanes. (I think they need to learn to be) "The Internet would now grind to a halt without such free and open-source resources as the operating system Linux, the Web server software Apache, the database MySql, and the programming language php." If someone can backup this affirmation with studies and sources, I would be grateful. I think there is a direct link between free software and free knowledge and culture. The transformation of solutions and ideas into proprietary goods with monetary value is a dead end, I think, and the major obstacle to progress and freedom. But it's extremely difficult to prove or disprove this theory because of the magnitude and complexity of its scope. However, it is essential to try to understand what is happening and what may happen with knowledge, both with the traditional systems and the "free" ones like wp. If we manage to have a clear idea and model of it, we can build better our philosophy, explain it better, and possibly achieve a bigger consensus. Back on the subject of encouraging participation, a general consideration: Practical solutions are immediate and efficient, but usually lead to unwanted deviations from the principles. So one should always ask himself or herself, "what are the consequences of this practical solution? How strong is the change of perspective it introduces? Is this change desirable, mergeable with our main goals, or at least reversible? Or will we corrupt our direction for too long (or forever) if we implement this working approach? This questioning is notable with the recent questions of attracting more users, of censorship and of attracting experts. Should we retain our policies and stall our development or should we introduce change to keep growing? My point is to judge the impact of the change comparing it to our long-term direction. We cannot trade a short-term benefit for a long-term goal (expressed in our policies) if the modifications cannot be changed later. If we cede to censorship, can we regain our loss of independance? If we invite frivolous minds, can we educate them? If we give privileges to experts, can we teach them to rescind them later?

--- El sáb 19-jun-10, Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com> escribió: Considering how similar we Argentines are to the Serbs I would suggest to take a far less scientific approach: Motivate them to write about their home towns, football teams, favourite players, pop-singer, etc. Once they have climbed the learning curve of not only the interface but the entire social context behind editing Wikipedia, it's a lot easier to focus them into a WikiProject to improve the content of a specific scientific topic. Tako sam i ja počeo! Good luck, Mariano.-

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 20/06/2010 03:25, Pavlo Shevelo wrote: It seems founded. I think it would be interesting to develop this idea. We could make a "expert" class of users, widely known, with admin powers on pages of their domain of expertise, with the possibility to lock articles temporarily from normal editors during edit wars. But they should be expected to give fair attention to alternatives, and respect the NPOV. They would still respond to admins and superadmins. Or would it be too conflicting with the wikimedians principles? I'm always dubious about compromises, because they generally achieve no other goal that artificial consensus at the cost of the conflicting goals. Maybe convincing internationally recognized experts to contribute articles as wp users (like Hawking on Astrophysics) would start the desire among experts to have a say among their peers? So wp could become a little more a place of exchange of expert knowledge. Why not create Wikipedians clubs in localities and schools that try to maintain a few pages about specific information dear to the members, yet still of encyclopedic value, like the local history or cultural highlights or natural wonders or a local artist or project, or just a shared dream, a story, a feeling, a song, etc. Why not propose to schools to publish the adventurous projects of each classes in a special section of the WMF foundation ?