[Foundation-l] Five-year WMF targets exclude non-Wikipedia projects

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Thank you for your replies.
Sue has kindly answered some questions on IRC, as well: 
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours/Office_hours_2010-10-14

Sue Gardner, 13/10/2010 03:58:
 > Below are some questions and answers re the targets that might be
 > helpful for the discussion. (Erik wrote most of this, and I've just
 > now added a few bits.)  If you read this and there are still issues
 > that you want addressed, please just say so :-)

Is Thomas' interpretation correct?

Thomas Dalton, 12/10/2010 13:37:
> This was a concious decision and I believe it is explained in the FAQs
> or somewhere (Sue certainly mentioned it in at least one of the
> (many!) presentions I've seen her do about the plan - there are slides
> for those somewhere too). 

The FAQ Sue posted here doesn't answer at all to my question.
«The “number of Wikipedia articles” is expected to be useful as an 
_indicator_ of the overall amount of information we offer»: it just can't.

> In summary (from memory), the reason was
> basically one of "bang for your buck". The vast majority of our users
> are using Wikipedia and not the other projects, 

But this could change.
For instance, I think that people spend much more time reading/studying 
dictionaries and other books than encyclopedias (in whatever form).
You can't say what it's possible. As a dictionaries addict, I used to 
believe (in 2005-2006), for many reasons, that a wiki dictionary wasn't 
going to be very useful (and I was a Wiktionary admin, I cared about 
it!); now en.wikt is IMHO better than many traditional English 
dictionaries, and it could attract most pageviews of its competitors if 
only people knew it. And I don't see why en, fr and some other 
Wiktionaries should continue to be the only successful ones.
But this is only an example.

> which means even a
> small improvement to Wikipedia is likely to have more impact than even
> a large improvement to one of the other projects. Sue was very clear
> that prioritising Wikipedia only applies to the WMF. The community
> can, and should, continue to improve the other projects, the WMF just
> feels that its limited resources are better used where they will have
> more impact.

A very small improvement to Wikipedia may cost much, much more than a 
huge improvement to projects where we've never invested almost anything.
And I could give you a list of examples (from the past) and proposals 
(for the future), but we would be OT.

John Vandenberg, 11/10/2010 05:20:
 > I am likewise disappointed.  The five year plan _should_ have seen the
 > other projects as the most likely source of new talent, contributors
 > and innovation, and should have focused on developing them.

I want to stress this, again.

Samuel J Klein, 12/10/2010 20:52:
 > It is good to see discussion of the targets.  There is also a final
 > strategic plan document, which is almost finished and which the Board
 > reviewed at our meeting over the weekend.  There were small wording
 > changes in the final plan.

This? http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Plan/Role_of_the_WMF 
(Or a later version of it.)

 > The problems with focusing only on Wikipedia articles were noted.  The
 > text of this target in the final strategic plan refers to growth in
 > articles available 'on Wikimedia projects', not just on Wikipedia.
 > This is still only a very rough estimate of growth in meaningfully
 > available knowledge. [1]
 >
 > The target does not say anything about the growth of Commons, though
 > this shows up elsewhere in strategy discussions.  I hope the Commons
 > community will develop its own targets and priorities for growth, of
 > both its collections and its community.

I don't think it's enough.

 > On Sun, Oct 10, 2010 at 11:20 PM, John Vandenberg wrote:
 >> I am likewise disappointed.  The five year plan _should_ have seen the
 >> other projects as the most likely source of new talent, contributors
 >> and innovation, and should have focused on developing them.
 >
 > That is how I see the focus on innovation, by the way, including
 > "other users of MediaWiki" along with "the other projects".

Yes, we often overlook the other users of MediaWiki, as well (at least, 
I do); and actually, it's quite surprising that the long-term proposal 
of setting up a "MediaWiki Foundation", which has been discussed several 
times (if I remember correctly), didn't come up on strategywiki. Perhaps 
it's something to think about for the next five-years plan. :-p

 > [1]  It is worth noting that Wikipedia, thanks to having the
 > preponderance of editors and traffic, is sometimes used as a casual
 > shorthand for the effective size of Wikimedia, even within our
 > community.  This is a skewing of focus that requires effort to
 > overcome -- but the effort is worth it, as Wikipedia alone will not
 > fulfill our mission.

That's exactly what I want to underline.
Wikipedia isn't enough. And if we focus our efforts only on Wikipedia, 
we could waste our energies.[1]
Therefore, I think that our main measure for the second goal should 
include all WMF projects. For instance, the number of entries on all 
projects. (This doesn't include MediaWiki, though.)

 > Better communication about the sister projects'
 > work and news may help.
 >
 > This holds true for public discussions as well.  I was speaking at a
 > library conference last week, and mentioned Wikisource.  A librarian
 > interrupted with enthusiasm, "there's also a Wikisource?" and later
 > had ideas about how to contribute digitizations.  Many potential
 > partners in disseminating knowledge may be able to contribute directly
 > to one of our projects, but not the others.

This is a good example. And there are many.

Michael Peel, 10/10/2010 19:54:
 > In any case, I think one of the major benefits of the strategy
 > exercise was to get Wikimedians considering where Wikimedia should be
 > in 5 years and setting their individual aims accordingly. Getting the
 > WMF Board to recognise those aims is only a secondary consideration,
 > really, as it's the community that drives Wikimedia's success and
 > breadth/depth/etc. of content.

Yes, but I'm also interested in WMF's priorities. :-)
And you forgot chapters. ;-)

Nemo

[1] We could reverse Thomas's argument and be even more harsh than he 
is: Wikipedia is our most developed project (and our main source of 
income); it can't grow much. Let's use the income from our core product 
to conquer other (big) markets.