Hi John,
Thank you for your continued work to elevate the importance of Wikipedia in
different circles.
Some early thoughts and questions below:
On Tue, Nov 14, 2023 at 3:51 AM john cummings <mrjohncummings(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
Dear all
I'd really appreciate some advice on an application for Wikipedia to be
considered for a very prestigious international heritage recognition.
Myself and a few others previously applied and got to the final stages of
the process, however we were rejected on the following points. If anyone
has any suggestions or papers which might help answer these issues I'd
really appreciate it. I have a number of arguments prepared but I would
really appreciate any thoughts, feel free to include them in this email
list, or just email me them separately. The first point is the one I feel
needs the most rebuttal.
1. Although it is acknowledged Wikipedia is a phenomenal idea, it was
not clear how it could be defined as ‘heritage’ at this stage of its
evolution.
What is the technical definition of "heritage" in this particular context?
(That may help us come up with relevant talking points.)
2. Wikipedia's dynamic nature and the
unpredictability of the nature of
the content generated.
Looking at this question, question 1, 4, 5, and 6: I wonder if the place
you're speaking to requires some level of stability or a static nature in
the project/theme that they want to call heritage. If something has to be
relatively static to be called a heritage, I wonder if you can consider a
different framing altogether: instead of pitching Wikipedia as a heritage,
you may want to consider pitching the model of global governance of
knowledge Wikipedia has introduced and operates based on as a heritage.
(Basically: the formula is the heritage, not the content itself.) If you
make this switch, then you have concrete elements and some potential claims
to make:
* Wikipedia has revolutionized the way knowledge gets curated and created
in many parts of the world. (You can talk about knowledge by a few to 100s
of thousands of editors contributing to knowledge.)
Wikipedia is not naive and while it welcomes everyone to share in the sum
of all knowledge, the project has thought-through content policies and
mechanisms to enable scalable knowledge curation/creation and maintenance:
* Wikipedia:Verifiability
* Wikipedia:Neutral Point of View
* Wikipedia:Consensus
* Transparency (through revision history)
* Talk pages
...
Happy to think through this with you more if you have follow-ups. (note:
I'm slow in responding to emails. If this is something that has a deadline
in the near future and you want to follow-up on something that I mentioned
above immediately: feel free to schedule one of my public office hours. [1]
otherwise here is great.)
Best,
Leila
[1]
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research/Office_hours#Schedule
--
Leila Zia
Head of Research
Wikimedia Foundation